I want you to think with me for a moment about the difference between a microscope and a telescope. Both of them magnify. A microscope is intended to take something that is small and make it look larger for us. So we can inspect it, we can see it. And a telescope is intended to make things that are far away and usually much larger than we see them and bring them closer so that we can see them more clearly. One makes something small larger, the other makes something large even larger. When we use the word magnify, most of us are thinking about the small to the large. We're thinking about magnifying something larger than it is. But when we use the word magnified biblically about magnifying God, we are talking about God who is vastly larger and more complicated and more beautiful than we can even see and magnifying him so that we see him even more. So that we're overwhelmed by the beauty of his glory. We're overwhelmed by the nature of his being and the goodness and justice of his works. Now many times, and we talked about this some last week, a common theme in scripture is to contrast pride and humility. And last week that was part of our application from understanding Elizabeth and her visit to Mary and her humility at extolling Mary as the mother of the Christ child. And we see many passages in scripture that talk about how God hates pride, and God will bring those who are prideful down. How many times did we see that in the book of Isaiah? Over and over and over, no matter what was going on in Israel, their primary sin was pride. Exalting themselves up above where they should be, magnifying themselves instead of magnifying God. Many passages of scripture talk about our fleeing from pride and pursuing humility, and most of them just assume humility for those who are gods. But rarely do we talk about how we do that. And I would submit to you one of the ways that our humility is strengthened is to magnify, in the telescopic sense, God. To be able to see what the Scripture says about Him and study it deeply and have it overwhelm us and sit richly among us This is why we sing songs with strong biblical lyrics, so that the word of God dwells richly among us as a body. And so when we are overwhelmed with God and His character, and when I say God, I mean our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and all that we learn about Him. And I think you will admit with me that we will never learn everything the Bible says about God in its fullness. Do you agree with that? We're always going to understand more about it. We're going to understand it from a different angle as we study. God is going to reveal it in his scriptures and then through our lives in different ways. And one of the ways that we can be pursuing humility is to be overwhelmed with the glory and grandeur and work and character of God. When we are overwhelmed with the character of God and all of his works, how can we exalt ourselves? It's very difficult to do when we see God who is other, God who is glorious, God who is beautiful, God who is perfect in all of his attributes, God in everything that he does in Christ to redeem a people for himself. The more we learn about that, the more we shrink. And that's not a bad thing. The more we shrink because he grows in our lives. In our passage today, we see Mary singing, giving a prayer of praise, a psalm of praise that exemplifies this. Her lowly status, recognizing who God is and magnifying his name, glorifying his name, his character, and his works brings her to a position of joy, brings her to a position of humility because God is growing larger and larger and larger in her sights. I can imagine the trip from her home to Elizabeth's home, taking those several days to be able to accomplish. What do you think she was thinking about? She had just been told by the angel Gabriel that the power of the Most High would come upon her and she would conceive a child, not in the human way, but in a spiritual way that brought glory to God as a result of His power because of His will as He worked His will out in her life. How do you think she thought on the way? If she was thinking, what a great person I am. I can't think of anybody better for God to give the Messiah to put in her womb. I deserve this. This is my place. This is my time. You go, girl. If she was doing that, do you think she would have sung this song, what we know as the Magnificat? She was basking in the prayers of the saints. She knew the word of God. She had so many different scripture passages about the character of God and the work of God and how he deals with people who are his and his enemies that that just exudes from her. She is squeezed into prayer and what comes out of her is scripture and that scripture magnifies the glorious grandeur of God in his works. So for us today, if you're struggling with pride, here's the place to start. Forget about yourself and immerse yourself in the beauty and glory of God. It's very hard to magnify your smallness into greatness when you are continuing to enlarge God's greatness in your mind. That's the primary thought for us this morning. Now, Mary's going to quote a lot of scripture passages. I'm not going to quote them all. I'm not going to go to them. We would be looking at so many different scripture passages that we would never get through this. But I want you to be challenged by this. The song that Mary sings is influenced by her knowledge of scripture. It's not just her own words. It's her understanding of God that she has through her knowledge of her scriptures, the Old Testament that she has before her. I wonder when God does miraculous things in our life, what comes out of us? What kinds of songs of praise? Are they laced with the truth of scripture because we are immersed in the scripture all the time? We're constantly seeking out to know God better, to love him more. We're memorizing, we're meditating upon, we're drawing the lines together of how God is working all his scripture together so we become more infatuated with him so that we have a reason to praise or even if we have a reason to grieve, if we have any reason at all to make a voice, it is full of the word of God. because that encompasses us. That's what we see in Mary. Now we'll see many other things, the work of God, what he's doing, what he has done in the past, what he is doing in the future, the reasons that he does it, and Mary is going to magnify the Lord and rejoice in her Savior as she sings this song. Stand with me as I read our text. Remember, Mary is being visited by Elizabeth. And Elizabeth, we dealt with that prophecy that Elizabeth gave last week. And immediately following the prophecy, we have a break of a week. There's no break here in reality of what we're being shown. Verse 45 says, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord. And Mary said, this is where we pick up today in this visit. And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has looked upon the humble state of His slave. For behold, from this time on, all generations will count me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him. He has done a mighty deed with His arm. He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers from their thrones and has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty-handed. He has given hope to Israel, his servant, in remembrance of his mercy to Abraham, or as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever. And Mary stayed with her about three months and then returned to her home. The grass withers and the flower falls. You may be seated. So verse 56 serves as a transition. In many writings in Scripture, there are transition verses that flow from one passage and lead us to another, and verse 56 is part of that transition for us, leading her away, leading Mary, Mary away from Elizabeth and setting the stage for Elizabeth to give birth to John the Baptist next week. But in this song, this Magnificat, I know you've heard the idea that this is Mary's Magnificat. The reason we call it that is because that's the first word in the Latin translation for magnify. So it's come to be known as Mary's Magnificat, her magnifying of the Lord. It reads and is structured like a psalm. So this is in the middle of the gospel, but it's a psalm that's being given, that's being sung. So immediately our understanding of that genre kicks in on how we interpret this in this song that she sings. And in these verses we hear Mary's Magnificat in which she magnifies God and rejoices in her Savior. We see that set for us in verses 46 and 47. She magnifies God and rejoices in her Savior for his mighty work on behalf of three interrelated groups of people. She magnifies and glorifies God for the work that he does. on behalf of three interrelated groups of people. And we'll see that as she shifts her language within this section of scripture. The first group of people that she sings to God about, Mary magnifies and rejoices in God for the great things he has accomplished in her. Look at verse 48 or 46. And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. Now remember from Isaiah, when we have parallelism like this in poetry, which is what this is, when we have parallelism like this, we have to understand what kind of parallelism we have. And oftentimes the parallelism is that saying one thing and then restating it in another way. Sometimes it's saying one thing and negating what's been said, showing the opposite. Sometimes it's saying one things and advancing that idea. And we have a little bit of both here. The first thing we need to understand is when Mary says, my soul and my spirit, we're not to see two separate things in her being talked about. What we're to see is a parallelism for her inner being. This is her inner being rejoicing. And she says that she magnifies the Lord and has rejoiced in God my Savior. Now there's a little further description of each of those, right? She's magnifying the Lord. She is drawing attention to His greatness. She is declaring the greatness of God and she calls Him her Lord. And in the New Testament, if you have changed over to the Legacy Standard version, you see a little footnote that says, in the Old Testament, this is Yahweh. And oftentimes, when our New Testament writers use this, this term, they're referring to Yahweh as God, or Jesus as Yahweh, who is God. And that's what Mary brings to us here. She is magnifying God, her Father, for what He's done in her and all the things He will accomplish through the baby in her womb. That's the progression of our text. So she magnifies the Lord. She brings, recognizes His greatness and declares it to the Lord my soul magnifies the Lord and everything about him and his goodness but also from my inner being my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior so not only is he is he Yahweh to her he is her Savior and his As we talked about before, there are many misunderstandings in the history of the Church of Mary, and many false teachings that have been brought about her, that she remains a virgin all of her life, that she is sinless, that she is the co-mediator with Jesus. Those are all things that are contradicted by Scripture that are not true. And yet, what happens is that we tend to forget that Mary is one who should be blessed by us and be thought about by us as one that God set his favor upon, and we are part of the generations that call her blessed. So sometimes in response to what certain groups within the church have done throughout history, we try to say, well, Mary's just another girl. Well, Mary was the mother of our Savior, and God Himself said He set favor upon her. God Himself said she's blessed, and Mary realizes that that is a generation-to-generation idea, not because of her! but because of the child that she bears. And this is one of those passages that contradict those false teachings. She calls God her savior. Now she's sinless, she needs no savior. She recognized that she needs a savior and that Yahweh is the savior and the child in her womb is the savior that Yahweh sends according to his Old Testament passages. So her soul magnifies, but her spirit has rejoiced. Notice the past tense. When God came upon her in his power and she conceived, the rejoicing began. She magnifies God and rejoices in her own soul. She is rejoicing within herself. Rejoicing marks her. Remember the difference between joy and happiness. There's a huge difference between joy and happiness, right? You can be joyful while you're sorrowful. You can be joyful while you're grieving. You can be joyful in your spirit when things around you are not so joyful because you know God is in control. You have a settled assurance that no matter what craziness is going on, you are rejoicing, you are joyful because God is in control of that. No one else can take that control away from God. So she is magnifying God and rejoicing and has rejoiced and continues to rejoice in God her Savior. She starts talking about the reasons, and if you'll look at verses 48 and 49, you'll see, in the LSB anyway, you see four, four, and four in the lines of 48, 48, and 49. There's really two reasons here, even though you see three fours, because the second four is an expansion of the first one. When we look at the original language, we see that the same word is used for the first and third, and the middle is a different word. It sets it apart. The two reasons that she rejoices and magnifies the Lord is for he has looked upon the humble state of his slave. Four, the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And the second four, for behold, from this time on all generations will call me blessed, is an expansion of the favor that He has looked upon her with in her humble state, and she calls herself a slave of God. She is a slave girl of the God who created heavens and earth. That's a mark of her humility and her standing before God. She magnifies God and she doesn't magnify herself. She recognizes her humble estate coming from probably a poverty. She's a young girl, a no-name town. She's a nobody in the eyes of the world. And yet God has set his affections upon her, for he has looked upon the humble state of his slaves, speaking about herself, and behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed." Count her blessed because she carries the Christ child, because God is the one who showed her favor. And that was the message that Gabriel brought. You have found favor with God. the assurance that she was given. Now, there are many passages that are quoted in what Mary is about to talk about. I have just a listing of them. In verse 46, we see Psalm 34-3, Psalm 69-30, Psalm 35-9, Isaiah 12-2, Isaiah 61-10. All of those passages support what you say in verse 46 alone. In verse 47, Habakkuk 3.18. In verse 48, 1 Samuel 1.11. In Genesis 29.32. And the list could go on. I could read them all, but there's even more allusions that are not even on my list. But I do want us to look at one place. I don't think she has this prayer in mind, but I wonder if she's meditated on this prayer on her way to visit, on her way to visit her relative Elizabeth. Turn, if you will, to 2 Samuel 2. 2 Samuel. No, 1 Samuel, not 2 Samuel. I'm sorry. Chapter 2. We have Hannah singing a song that the Lord God of creation blessed her with a child when she didn't think she would have one. Verse 1 of chapter 2. Then Hannah prayed and said, My heart exults in Yahweh. My horn is exalted in Yahweh. My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies, because I am glad in your salvation. There is no one holy like Yahweh. Indeed, there is no one beside you, nor is there any rock like our God. Do not multiply speaking so very proudly. Let arrogance not come out of your mouth, for Yahweh is a God of knowledge, and with him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are shattered, but those who stumble gird on strength. Those who were full hire themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry cease to hunger. Even the barren gives birth to seven, but she who has many children languishes. Yahweh puts to death and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol and raises up. Yahweh makes poor and rich. He brings low, He also exalts. He raises the poor from the dust. He exalts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with nobles and inherit a seat of glory. For the pillars of the earth are Yahweh's and He set the world on them. He kept the feet of his holy ones. He keeps the feet of his holy ones, but the wicked ones are silenced in darkness, for not by power shall a man prevail. Those who contend with Yahweh will be dismayed. Against them he will thunder in the heavens. Yahweh will render justice to the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king, and he will exalt the horn of his anointed. So this is the prayer of Hannah, and you see the similarities. And one thing I want to draw your attention to is the constant reversals. We see this all through scripture, do we not? We saw it a lot in Isaiah. We can see it in other prophetic writings. We see it in Hannah's prayer. We see it in Mary's Magnificat. That God is a God who turns upside down the world. Because He's accomplishing His purposes. He is accomplishing His goals. He is doing as He pleases. So even though the world may look crazy, God's turning it upside down. He will, He has, He is, and He will turn it upside down. There are these constant reversals that give the people of God great, great hope. No matter what we see in the world, God is about the business of putting things right. No matter where the injustices are that we see, God is about the business of bringing justice. It may not be in the time that we think or in the way we think, but this is according to His will and according to His character. So the promises are there for us to be believed. Back in Luke chapter 1, she says, So this is a term that Luke uses several times, and it's always at a major turning point. This is a major turning point. The Messiah, the one to bring salvation for his people, has now been conceived through the power of God in this young woman's womb, and she recognizes the change that's happening through this one. This one will be bringing these kinds of changes. He uses it four other times, Luke does, in his history for Theophilus. In chapter five, when Jesus called his first disciples, he told Peter, do not fear, from now on, you will be catching men. You used to be a fisherman who catches fish, now I'm making you a gospel preacher, and men and women will come to faith in you. Something is changing, and it's a major change. Chapter 12, verse 52. Jesus told his followers that his presence and his people's response to it would cause division in human relationships. The gospel is preached, we come to Christ, and human relationships may be shattered because of the difference between one who does believe and one who doesn't believe. Jesus says, do you think that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you no, but rather division. For from now on, Five members in one household will be divided. Three against two and two against three. They will be divided. Father against son and son against father. Mother against daughter and daughter against mother. Mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. The gospel reverses the things that we think are normal. Chapter 22, when Jesus inaugurated the Lord's Supper, he said, for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes. A major shift. He's getting ready to leave. The incarnate one is getting ready to die and be raised again and seated at the right hand of the Father. And he will join his people again in the married supper of the Lamb. Something is changing at that point. Later on in that same chapter, when Jesus faced the Sanhedrin after his arrest, they challenged him, if you are the Christ, tell us. But he said to them, if I tell you, you would not believe. And if I ask a question, you will not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God. And they all said to him, are you the Son of God then? And he said to them, you yourselves say that I am. So when Luke uses this term, it is a term to draw our attention that in Jesus, things are changing. Things are going in a different direction. And Mary recognizes this with the fruit of her womb, as Gabriel referred to Jesus in her womb. But the second reason she gives, look right there at verse 49, for her own praise, for the mighty one has done great things for me and holy is his name. Now look back at verse 35 and just remember the language that Gabriel used. The angel answered her. She says, how will this be since I am a virgin? I've never been with a man. The angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason, the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God. So that language is influencing her thanksgiving, that this mighty work that God has done has been the Mighty One doing great things for her, and what does she say? His name is Holy. She immediately goes to the character of God. He's mighty, he's powerful, he's miraculous, he's done this great thing. There are many things she could have said in this place, but what does she do? She talks about his name, his character being holy. This is her, again, magnifying God, magnifying in the telescopic sense, reminding herself and all of us that all of the work God does, he does because he is holy. He also does because he's powerful and he's sovereign and all the other characteristics, but her mind is drawn to his perfections His holiness, and she ties it to His work, and holy is His name. Now this idea of holiness is one of the ways that we keep ourselves humble before the Lord, is it not? Because when we realize His perfections, no sin in Him, the brightness of His glory untainted by any sin, And that means everything that he does is untainted by sin, and then we realize our life. We've been redeemed by the Lord of Glory. We've been redeemed by the work of Christ. And yet we still are not called holy in our actions. We still fight sin. We are holy in the sense that we're set apart. We are holy in the sense that it's Christ's righteousness credited to our account on the Day of Judgment. But we're still fighting sin here. And the last time I checked, we're not perfect in fighting that sin. So considering His holiness keeps us in our place, doesn't it? It keeps us in our place because God has said, Be holy, for I am holy. He has told us that this is what we must be. Now the beauty of the gospel is He commands us to be holy and He provides it in Jesus. Amen? We stand before Him with Christ as our advocate and His holiness credited, His righteousness credited to our account. But in this world we're still fighting sin and every time we fight we're remembering we are not holy, but He is. And the separation grows in a good way, because we don't elevate ourselves. We look at the sin before us, and we look at the situations before us, and we say, God is perfect in his work, and he is holy. So we are kept in our place because we're not God. We're kept in our place being dependent upon God who is holy. Remember, this is about our dependence. The more prideful we are about ourselves, the more independent we become, amen? We become independent. We don't need God. We don't need help from God, because we can accomplish this ourselves. We're like the child who learns how to do something, and what do they say? I do it. I do it because they're learning independence, right? Their power is growing and they're learning independence. And sometimes we have to tell them, no, you're not gonna do it now to remind them they're dependent upon others. So this is all wrapped up. And she immediately goes to the character. Remember, his name is talking about his character. It's not just Yahweh or Jesus, the name itself that's holy. It's the person that that represents, the God that that represents who is holy. So Mary has brought this praise to God for what he's accomplished in her. But I also want you to see a second group of people. Mary magnifies and rejoices in God for the mighty deeds he has done and will do for all those who fear him. For all those who fear him. Look at verse 50. In verse 50, To 53, we see her change. Remember, we always look for these changes, right? Changes in audience, changes in speaker, changes in who's being spoken about. And in verse 50, we have this quote from Psalm 103, 17, and his mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear him. So now we're not just with Mary here, we've expanded to the group of people who fear God. Not fear in the sense that Mary and Zechariah were doing when the angel shows up, but fear, it includes some of that, It includes some of that because we're realizing the greatness and grandeur of God, but it's that reverence we have toward God. The reverence that we have toward Him as our Father, as our Creator, as our Judge, everything who God is, it's that reverence we have before Him, those who fear Him. And notice, and his mercy is upon generation after generation. That's Old Testament covenant language, isn't it? The same Greek word that translates as mercy here translates kesed, the covenant faithfulness of God in most places in the Old Testament. So we are seeing the mercy of God, the covenant faithfulness of God, the faithfulness that He has to His own promises concerning His people brought here, and it's from generation to generation, and the mercy is placed upon those who fear Him. And those who fear God are the ones who will be redeemed, right? Old Testament language are those who fear God. That's what God's people do. The people who are against God, who are His adversaries, who are lifting themselves up, who God will come against because of their pride, they don't fear God. They have no fear of God. That's why they elevate themselves. And His mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him. So this opens it up to us as well. Now we have some interpretive questions for us as we come into this section, don't we? There's a lot of past tense language, that God has done these things, and also she talks about that God coming to help Israel. Now Mary being an Israelite, being a Jew, would be expecting God to come and come for his people and to redeem his people and deliver them as all the Old Testament promises have said. She would use the Old Testament language that God has used with his people. She would also be under the impression that this Jesus, this Messiah in her womb would do all of the political deliverance that Israel needed as well. Remember when we studied before in the Gospels, we've seen that the Disciples sometimes were expecting Jesus to come and overthrow their oppressors, right? They were expecting him to come and overthrow their physical oppressors in the day, overthrow Rome and all of the bad judges and leaders over them. Where in the Old Testament, looking forward, we see one deliverance, don't we? But as we see in the New Testament, what do we see? Like the telephone poles that line up in the distance when you step a little bit beside, you see the multiple fulfillments of that deliverance. And we see the new covenant looking toward a spiritual deliverance that is often represented in physical deliverance as well. So Mary is speaking in the terms that she understands, but she's expanding it to all those who fear the Lord. So we include ourselves in her grouping here as well. And it's His mercy, His covenant faithfulness that He is remembering and that He is keeping from generation to generation. And then she begins a list of His works. He has done a mighty deed with His arm. He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. Now that mighty deed, we saw with his arm, we saw how many times in Isaiah, his arm, his right arm, his right hand, and what did it stand for? His power, right? His ability to do what he said he was going to do. And it stands for the same thing here. He has done a mighty deed with his arm, and he has scattered those who were proud. So his mighty deed is tied with the scattering of the proud, which fits so many Old Testament texts and also New Testament texts, but it also brings other texts into our mind, doesn't it? Remember the Tower of Babel? The Tower of Babel, however you want to pronounce it. The tower, what did the people do? They came together and said, let us build up a tower so that we can reach up into the heavens so that we will not be scattered. And what did God do? God said, let us go down and investigate this, like they needed to go down and investigate it. Let us go down and investigate this. And what did he do? He scattered them. Why? Because they wanted to make a name for themselves. Then Abraham comes on the scene in the next chapter, and what does God say? I will make your name great. And that scattered language for those who were proud in building up that tower is what comes into our mind. This is the way God works. God is not gonna be set off of his throne no matter how much human beings think that they will set him off of the throne. I want you to just turn to one place. We can look at all kinds of different scripture passages, as I said, but I want you to turn to Psalm 89. Keep your finger in loop one and turn to Psalm 89. We're going to start in verse 5. The heavens will praise your wonders, O Yahweh, your faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the sky is comparable to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the mighty is like Yahweh? Oh God, a God greatly dreaded in the counsel of the holy ones and fearsome above all those who are around him. Oh Yahweh, God of hosts, who is like you, oh mighty Yah. Your faithfulness also surrounds you. You rule the swelling of the sea. When its waves rise, you still them. Listen to verse 10. You yourself crushed Rahab, that's a name for Egypt, like one who is slain. You scattered your enemies with your strong arm. This is a reference to God delivering his people from Egypt. And the language is that he is coming against the proud and scattering them with their strong arm. This is the kind of passage that is in Mary's mind when in chapter one, verse 50 of Luke, Verse 51, she says, he has scattered those who were proud. She is thinking back to events like the exodus. And we know that the exodus is like the primary picture of deliverance in the Old Testament. All Israel is going to look back to the exodus for any other hopeful deliverance that God will do. It's the same language that was used when we were studying Isaiah and the faithful, the remnant, were getting ready to exit Babylon. It was a second exodus. And now Mary's using all this to refer to something that God is going to do because He has done it in the past. He is providing an exodus from sin and the baby that's in her womb. It's the language that ties us to God's sovereign work in the exodus. Now, we have to answer the second question that I mentioned earlier. What about these past tense verbs? He has done. He has scattered. He has brought. He has exalted. He has filled. He has given. Those are translated correctly. They're translations of a verb form that would be translated in the past tense. And he has done all of these things in the past, hasn't he? Everything that's mentioned, God has done for his people in the past. But there is also a form of this verb that helps us to understand that the writer is saying he's doing it in the future, and we are so sure and certain that he is going to do it, that we speak about it as if it's present tense or already done. And it seems like that's the knob that's being given here. So yes, he has done all these things in the past, but Mary is also saying, we know he's going to do it in the future because he's been faithful to do it in the past. And all of this is him being faithful to his covenant to whom? to generation after generation after generation. So the promises in Christ are fulfilled in Christ in such a way that everything he's done in the past, God is going to do in a miraculous way through this baby in her womb. And she's giving God all the credit that he has done and he will do again. He scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. Now, the idea of pride in the scripture is never a good thing. We can use pride in a way that's not sinful, right? We can be proud of our children or proud of an accomplishment and still give God glory. We see people in scripture giving us that kind of an approach as well. But the main way that pride is used in the scripture is that we have elevated ourselves. We're magnifying ourselves instead of magnifying God. And we're seating ourselves in judgment over Him. Or we're judging Him about the situation we're in. Or we're forgetting to give Him credit as if He had nothing to do with anything that we have accomplished. And this is in their hearts. In the thoughts of their heart, they have been proud. And God has and will scatter them just like He did the Egyptians, just like He did at the Tower of Babel. But she also says in verse 22, he has brought down rulers from their thrones and has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty handed. So you see these contrasts, the rulers, and these are literally kings and people in authority who are ruling from their thrones, prideful in their heart, and he has brought them down. and those people who have exalted themselves or he has exalted those who were humble and filled the hungry with good things. We see this chiastic structure here where he talks about those who are proud and he talks about those who are rich and what God will do with them and in the middle he talks about those who are hungry and those who are humble and what God does for them. This is the great reversal. And remember, God seeks justice. Most of the prophets condemn the leaders of Israel for the primary issue of not exercising justice in God's place as rulers of God's people. Most of the prophets will talk about the reason for that being that they are prideful and they've set up their own worlds and their own ways to be exalted and taken care of and well-fed and keep their power. I mean, we don't know anything about this in today's world, about having power and wanting to keep it, do we? We don't have any current examples of that at all. You're one. I'm one. We're all examples of someone who have power and we want to keep it if we're gonna pursue the sinful way. If we're not gonna crucify the pride that's in our heart by magnifying God, we are ending up magnifying ourselves. And so just because we can't see ourselves doing what some of our current national leaders are doing, we're all capable of it, are we not? Because we're all fighting the same sin. Now, I don't want to leave you with the impression that if you're a faithful believer here, that you have trusted in Christ for your salvation, that somehow if you're prideful, God will scatter you away and not save you. That's not the way the gospel works, is it? This baby that's in the womb is one who comes to be able to make those transformations. And we are not exalted if we're humble. We are not exalted because of our own self. We're exalted because we are in Christ. We are His We are part of God's family in Christ. And so Christ is exalted and we are exalted with him. When we take the seat at the end of the table, God sometimes puts us up at the seat at the beginning of the table. According to the scriptures, we just don't put ourselves there, do we? We want believers in power in our government, don't we? We want people that are believers and love God and love justice and wanna function according to the scriptures, whether they're dog catchers or presidents, we want believers in power. We want God to exalt them, but we want God to exalt the people he promises to exalt. And who are those? The humble, the ones who are magnifying God instead of themselves, the one who sit in the back of the table instead of the front of the table. We pray that for our children. We have all these children here. What are they going to do in their lives? How is God going to use them in their lives if they learn the difference between pride and humility when they're four? and they're constantly being taught the difference, and they see the difference modeled in their parents, and let me clue you in, they see the difference modeled in you. Every Sunday, every fellowship, every home group, they see it all the time, and they see God being glorified in us, and they learn that humility is the path for God's people, not pride. Humility is the way we walk, not with arrogance. God promises to exalt those who are humble. What will he do with our children if we can teach them that by our lives? Even if we spend our life not realizing that. If you're sitting here right now saying, man, I wish I would have learned the truth of this a long time ago, that I'm magnifying myself instead of God. Well, that's what grace does, right? Grace reminds us of the work of Christ in us and exalts us at the proper time to teach and to model that for the next generation. Those are the kinds of things that we are doing. as we ask God to change the world through his people. So he brings down rulers, but he exalts those who are humble. He fills the hungry with good things. Those who are poor, those who have received injustice and have not had the ability to feed themselves, he feeds them, filled them with all good things, quoting Psalm 107.9, but the rich he has sent away empty-handed. And then this, there's nothing against being rich here. It's being rich as prideful people, right? That's the context. If God grants you a lot of money and God grants you riches, use it to his glory, he'll probably grant you more according to the promises of his word. Use it for your own glory. You may not be rich long because God reverses these things. One commentator said the same verb for brought down appears in 2553 of Luke as well when Joseph of Arimathea takes Jesus down from the cross. The contrast between the mighty being taken down from their thrones is striking. Jesus is taken down as king of the Jews from a throne of degradation only to be exalted to an external throne because of his obedience. He is our model, is he not? Philippians chapter two, have this mind in yourself. Christ in humility went to the cross and we're supposed to live as he does. And of all the people in the world, he was the one who should not have been on that cross. It was a cross of degradation. and yet God exalted him to his right hand for an eternal reign of glory and he's done so on our behalf so that we have life and we follow him in that reign as his eternal reign and as his people listen this baby that's born in the womb this baby is going to change everything mary is telling us and we look back on history we know this baby has changed Everything, everything has been turned upside down because now sin doesn't reign in the world, Christ reigns in the world. Sin, yes, has its place and God is in control of all of that, of evil and how it expands, but God has won the victory. He is seated at the right hand of the Father and he is never going to leave us. All power and authority has been given to him as he tells us to go out in this crazy lost and dying world and what, magnify ourselves? No, magnify him by preaching the gospel. Magnify Christ by preaching his gospel so that men and women are saved and come to faith in Christ. Look at verse 54. We've seen Mary the great things he's accomplished for Mary. We've seen Mary's testimony of the mighty deeds he has done for all those who will fear him, who fear him. But now in verse 50, in verse 54, Mary magnifies the riches in God for the merciful help he has, has and will continue to show all those who are Abraham's spiritual seed. This is where Mary prophesies more than she understands. All those who fear him and who that will be. But in verse 54, she says, he has given help to Israel, his servant. Kind of a summary statement of all the past tense things he has done. He has given help to Israel, his servant. In remembrance of his mercy, there we see mercy again. We see it in verse 50, we see it in verse 54. It's going to drive us forward in the birth of John the Baptist and Zechariah's prophecy as well. Mercy is going to drive each of those sections as being one of the central themes. In remembrance of his mercy, I think this is telling us that on the basis of his mercy, he's given help to Israel, his servant. Now, what did we learn about Israel, God's servant in Isaiah? Remember that we were in chapter 40 through 48, and out of 10 times the servant is used, it refers to whom? To Israel. One time to this messianic servant, but 10 times to Israel. God claims Israel, his people, as his servant. But were they the perfect servant? They were not. So God sends his perfect servant. And when we see from 49 to the end of Isaiah, the servant every single time but one speaks of the Messiah, the suffering servant, the one who will come. We have that idea here. We have Israel. Mary knows that Israel is God's servant. It starts at the very beginning of their history. And he says, Pharaoh, let my servant, let my son go. And he also calls him his servant. She knows that Israel is the servant. But we know also from Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 53 and many other places, that Jesus Christ is the perfect servant, the suffering servant, the one who comes to bear the sins of his people. And God, on the basis of his mercy, his covenant faithfulness, verse 54, verse 55, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever. So this is God's covenant faithfulness, a summary statement as he spoke to the fathers and as he spoke to Abraham about his seed forever. So in the old covenant, we see the seed being Israel themselves, God, the promise to Abraham that they would outnumber the stars in the sky and the sands on the sea shore. But in a New Testament, Paul tells us in Galatians 3 that the seed spoken of in that promise was Christ himself. And so when we're talking about Christ, him being the seed, him being the one that perfectly fulfills the law of Moses, him being the one who is the rightful and perfect ruler from David's throne, all those who are connected to him, they're Abraham's children. They inherit Abraham's promises as well. So she's expanded this idea of those who are, Those who fear him to be the ones who are Abraham's seed forever. And he is remembering his covenant faithfulness to all of us, how? Through the baby in her womb, who comes to fulfill all of those Old Testament promises. So she is consistently magnifying God in her song, in how she brings us the work of this baby that will be in her womb. And we find ourselves in the middle of this because we are the God-fearers now. Doesn't exclude Israel. It includes all of true Israel, as Paul says in Romans 2, right? It includes all of those who are not, not everyone who is in our churches today, but all those who are true Israel, truly redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, not just with an external confession, but an internal changed heart. Because this baby in Mary's womb, she's telling us all those promises in the Old Testament about one to come to deliver God's people, comes in this one. and you cannot be a proud person, which means you can't be embracing your sin and come to the cross, can you? You can't come for salvation and say, I just want to keep these couple of sins, they really make me happy, or I really don't want to get rid of these works. I think these works will do me pretty well. I might not need your works too, but on the day of judgment, I think these few works I've got, they're pretty cool, I think. I think I can bring them in and bolster my case on judgment day. That's magnifying ourselves. Because the Savior that's in Mary's womb comes to redeem those who are lowly. He comes to redeem those who are setting their pride aside and magnifying God. He comes to those who are professing God is the only way to salvation. Jesus is the only way that we can see the Father is through Him. And we are not proud because we come repenting, right? Without repentance there is no forgiveness of sins, in the same way that there is no forgiveness of sins if there is not the shedding of blood. So we come without our pride. We come knowing we will not be scattered away from the Savior because we are coming because He has bid us come. And we come with nothing in our hands. We come to Him alone with no pride, magnifying God and His work in Christ. And for all those who come in that way, salvation is theirs, just like Mary can say that her spirit has rejoiced in God, her Savior. So if you have not experienced that, if you have not repented of your sins, if you're holding onto your pride this morning and you're not coming to Jesus in the way the scripture says by setting your pride aside, your works aside, confessing your sin and trusting in His perfect work, you are on the outside. You are not yet in your salvation, but the offer is there. The offer is there today for you to turn from your own pride and humbly come before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to receive salvation that leads to eternal life, that for generation after generation after generation, you will be experiencing the mercy of God because Christ is the one who fulfills the promises in Abraham. Let's pray together. Father, we are grateful to you for your mercy to us, for the constant reminder of that mercy, the constant reminder that you are against the prideful You exalt the humble, and the way we crucify pride most often is by magnifying you and not ourselves. So we ask you, Father, as we turn to the Lord's table, that you remind us that that shedding of blood has happened. You remind us that the faith in Christ produces fruit today. and it will produce fruit tomorrow. And we can speak of our eternal place in the new heavens and new earth so strongly that we can speak already that we are seated in the heavenly places with Christ. So Father, we ask you to feed us today as we turn to the Lord's Supper. In Jesus' name, amen.