Luke 1, verses 26-56, and we're
going to look at a small section of that. Luke 1, verse 26, And
the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city
of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, a spouse, to a man
whose name was Joseph. the house of David, and the virgin's
name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her
and said, Hail, thou art highly favored. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women.
And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and cast
in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel
said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with
God. And behold, thou shalt conceive,
and in thy womb bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. And he shall be great, and shall
be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever, and in his kingdom there shall be
no end." I'd say that's the Sovereign. There's never going to be an
end of His sovereign rule over man. Then said Mary unto the
angel, How shall this be seen? I know not a man. Because she
was engaged to the spouse. We're not married yet. But Joseph,
how can this be? I have not known a man. And the
angel said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and
the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also
that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth,
she also hath conceived the Son in her old age, and this is the
sixth month with her, who is called barren. For with God nothing
shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold, the handmaid
of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. and the angel departed
from her. And Mary rose in those days and
went into the hill country with haste and into a city of Judah,
and entered into the house of Zacchaeus and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass that when
Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe in Elizabeth's
womb leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the
Holy Ghost. And she spake out with a loud voice and said, Blessed
art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. and
winces this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me. For lo, as soon as the voice
of the salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leapt in my
womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed,
for there shall be a performance of those things which were told
her in the Lord. And Mary said, My soul doth magnify
the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he hath regarded the lowest
state of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth all
generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done
to me great things, and holy is his name. And his mercy is
on them that fear him from generation to generation. He that showed
strength with his arm, he hath scattered the proud in the imagination
of their heart. He hath put down the mighty,
and filled them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with
good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath
helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, and
as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever. And Mary abode with her, that
is Elizabeth, about three months and returned to her own house."
Now, I love this, like this, I entitled this, Mary's Song
of Praise and Thankfulness. And it starts basically in verse
46 and goes through 55. May we follow this morning her
lead. May we follow her lead. of extreme praise and thankfulness. But before we go there, first
I'd like to take a look at the miracle itself. The miracle itself. The Lord said, I'm not married
to you or not, but God, you have found favor with God. And in
verse 26, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from
God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth. Now, this miracle, and I don't
care what the Catholics say about Mary, but there never was such
a thing realized in all the world. Mary immaculately conceived the
Redeemer and Savior of men's souls. Such was the birth of
man, such was the event foretold, and such was the glory revealed. Specifically, he says in verse... What we see here is the Lord
regarding... What we see here is the exhortation... miracle of God visiting Mary,
it's a present help to a humble, she calls herself, servant, 54.
And I step back and I say, yes, because all the scriptures is
about Christ. Substitutionary works. Who has been reconciled to God
through the everlasting righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. This,
what we see here, what actually happened, this miracle, is summarily
what takes place when He's gone. That's simply the good news.
And don't you know that what God, through the angel Gabriel,
told Mary was delightful news. Scary. Go back in the same chapter
to Elizabeth, as the Gospel goes forth in power
and redemptive dynamite, the tumos of the Gospel, everyone
that has been chosen, called, and quickened by God the Holy
Spirit. What was done here, we have no
doubt, no question, is a miracle. And I know we've looked at this
before, but let's look at it again. Turn to Matthew 11. We're not doing any of this.
But look with me at verse... Well, let's just read. And it
came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding, Matthew
11, verse 1, commanding His twelve disciples, He departed thence
to teach and to preach in their cities. Now when John, as John
the Baptist heard, in the prison at the works of Christ, he sent
two of his disciples. And he said unto them, Art thou,
he said unto him, told them they asked of Christ, Art thou he
that should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and
said unto them, said John's disciples, Go, both of you, and go. The blind received their sight,
The lepers are cleansed, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have not preached. As we gather together, we are
one body, one hope, one thought, one Lord. It's a miracle of the
Gospel. It can be today. It can be in
the future. And I'll just thrill us that
we're listening to a miracle of the grace of God. We could go to almost any church,
probably any church, as far as I know, in this town, and you're
not going to hear it. you're not going to hear it.
But the gospel is preached and it's truly a miracle. It's a
miracle of divine making to hear the gospel, to believe the gospel,
and to keep believing this gospel. Look at the similarities. Luke
chapter 1 verses 26 and 35. It says Gabriel was sent and
he was speaking to Mary. Mary did not come to God. God
came to her. That's the gospel. You can't
come to God. You will not come unto Him that
you may have life. The gospel's got to come to you
and God's got to come down on this earth in His humiliation. Born of a virgin. Flesh of our
flesh, bone of our bone. made like unto us without sin.
That's the way of the Gospel. Mary did not come to God. God
came to her. Secondly, Mary was without child and then she's
with child. That's a free gift. That's a
free gift of grace. It's a free gift of humanity. It's just a free gift. And I
like to say, I like to go to the lowest common denominators.
These things make sense to me. She didn't have a child and she
did have a child. You come in here, you may not
understand the truth, the Gospel, and you hear and maybe you've
heard for years, and then God the Holy Spirit takes the words
and applies them to your heart, and you say, I magnify the Lord. How does the Spirit move? How
does the Spirit work? It flows to whomever however,
whenever He wills. But He will use the foolishness
of the preaching. Third thing, similarities, she was religious,
yet it was not the reason God sought her out. No, if you look
at Matthew, and I recommend it, but it's not something that we
usually do, is you go to Matthew chapter 1 and you look at those
genealogies, there's a reason for those genealogies. Because
it takes the genealogy And the last, one of the last persons
mentioned in that genealogy is Joseph, the spouse to Mary, whom the
Lord was going to come forth. So this choosing, this gospel,
this gospel of God's grace, it was prophesied, it was foretold,
predestinated her unto adoption as He does all. In a similar
fashion, this is how God saves sinners like you and I. It's
a miracle. He has to do the work. He has to do the work. We're
without Christ. And then by the grace of God,
we're with Christ. And you see him snap his fingers.
You hear, and I know the Puritans used to say, you have to go through
so many months of despair and destruction. I don't know about
any of that. Some believers did, some believers didn't. You may
be like Paul. He's just riding the religious
hobby horse, and then he'll knock you off your horse. And then
he's going to say, through the preaching of the Gospel, it's
hard for you to kick against the pricks. So that's just the
first thought. It's just this beautiful gospel
illustration of the miracle of the birth of Christ. Now secondly,
this is the context, the main heart of what I wanted to get
to. Let us duplicate Mary's praise and thankfulness as God's child. So, has Christ redeemed you? This is going to be said of you.
If not, Maybe this will be said of you today. Let's look at it. Starting in verse 46, And Mary
said, Mary, the wife of Joseph, the mother of our Lord, the first
thing she says, My soul doth magnify the Lord. We're just
going to look at each one of these verses just briefly. I like looking
at the Hebrew and seeing what these words mean. My soul, that
simply is all of me. My heart, my body, my soul. My soul doth magnify the Lord,
magnify, declare great, extol or heap praise upon the Lord
and Him alone. She says, she's not... My soul
doth... doth magnify the Lord, the Lord,
because He's done it all. He's visited me. She didn't say
anything about Gabriel here, though he was the messenger.
And you don't talk about me, because I'm just a messenger. And if you are used of God to
share the Gospel and somebody believes, you're just a messenger. You're just staying back. Really, a true Gospel preacher
wants to become invisible. You don't want to pay any attention. He has visited us like He did
Mary. He has turned our night into
day for He Himself is our day spring. Look at verse 47. And my spirit hath rejoiced in
God my Savior. Rejoiced. That is to be exceedingly
glad in God our Deliverer or in Christ more properly. I rejoice,
we rejoice. Our spirit rejoices in God, in
Jehovah, my Savior. Verse 48, He hath regarded the
lowest state of His handmaid, for behold, from henceforth all
generations shall call Me blessed. He hath regarded. That means
to look with favor or pity, or I like this one, to have respect
unto. Can you think of another Old
Testament illustration where God had respect unto one and
didn't the other? Cain and Abel. God had respect
unto Abel's sacrifice. Therefore he had respect for
Abel, but he did not Cain. He hath regarded We are exceedingly
glad that our God, for reasons found only in himself, has sought
us, redeemed us, taught us, and he will keep us. And he says,
which this is taken out of context, henceforth all generations shall
call me blessed, call me graced, call me happy, not and never
to be worshiped. We do not worship Mary, we do
not worship a person, but we are very thankful that the Lord
used her to bring forth our Redeemer. Verse 49, For He that is mighty
hath done to me great things, and holy is His name. He hath
done for me mighty things, that is powerful, that is capable,
great things, magnificent, or perfect. And yes, God in Christ
is and does for us through our substitute. Everything He does
is magnificent and is perfect. You find no fault in Him. And
His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation.
Mercy, we know what this word signifies, is giving someone
something they do not deserve. And we, by nature and practice,
do not deserve the least of His tender mercies. But thanks be
unto God for His unspeakable gift, the Lord Jesus Christ. I like this, verse 51, He hath
showed strength with His arm and has scattered the proud in
the imagination of their hearts. He has showed strength." That
is dominion and might as is in Daniel chapter 4. Daniel chapter 4, you remember
he thought, he walked out on the porch one day and he said,
he looked at the kingdom, he says, man, look at what I've
done. I'm really something. And as soon as the words came
out of his mouth, the Lord smote him and humbled him and broke
him. And this is what he said. Very
similar to the word usage is what Mary said. In verse 34, and thirty-five. And at the end
of days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and
mine understanding returned unto me." You know, really, the people
who do not understand the Gospel, they say, we're fanatics and
we're out of our mind. No, people who do not understand the Gospel
are out of their mind, and the Lord brings us back to our right
mind. That which we were created, which
we lost. And I blessed the Most High and
praised and honored Him that liveth forever, whose dominion,"
there's that word, is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is
from generation to generation. It sounds like what we just read.
And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing,
and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His
hand or say unto Him, what are You doing? What are You doing? He has showed strength, might,
and dominion. And it says He has scattered
the proud. Scattered. That's to rout. That's to winnow. If you remember Ruth and Boaz,
the process of winnowing was to separate the chaff and the
wheat. That's what that word is. He scatters the proud and
the imagination of their hearts. Verse 52, He hath put down the
mighty with their seats and exalted them of low degree." She's owning
her sinnerhood. She says, I'm of low degree.
I'm nothing. I'm a handmaiden. I'm a servant. He, Jehovah God, separates the
goats from the sheep. He puts down one and exalts the
other as He did Jacob and Esau. He puts down one and raises another. Verse 53, And He hath filled
the hungry That's me. That's you. Spiritual hunger
with good things and the rich He has sent away empty. Filled.
That means satisfied. Aren't you satisfied with Christ?
Aren't you satisfied with His gospel? I was in religion, and I was
never satisfied. Of course, I was too busy doing
other stuff, but I wasn't. But when I heard the truth of
the everlasting gospel, the ancient gospel, Stop looking around. That's what
I don't understand. People keep looking around. And
they say, well, this doesn't satisfy me, that doesn't satisfy
me. And they tell you they understand the Gospel. No, you don't, because
if you hear the Gospel, you're going to try to be under it,
and you're going to try to be controlled by it, and you want
to be. Filled, that means satisfied.
Hungry, that means bigger to feed his family. He has filled the hungry with
good things. He has satisfied those who are famished with good
things. And the rich, the rich, he has
sent away empty. The rich, this is to be increased
with goods. Sounds familiar? Like the fool
in a barn. I'll build more and more. Nope. He's dead. He's sold. He's fired. Sent, that means dismissed. Empty
means vain. And I just did synonyms for vain. That meant self-loving, conceited,
self-absorbed. He has satisfied those who are
spiritually famished with good things. The Gospel is good news. The Gospel is concerning a person. It's concerning His work. Who
He is. What He's done. Where He's at
now. He didn't stay in the grave.
He was resurrected to newness of life. We serve a living Savior. There's more people I've talked
to, they just can't figure that out. So that you're just going
through an old guy in the book. No. He's ever-present. Making
intercession for us right now. He's a living God, which we've
seen in 1 Peter. Living Lord. But, they're rich, they're sent. They're sent away. They're sent
to the streets. and you don't really think about
it until you see it. Now, we've looked at
verses 8 through 8, which is, I guess, 6, 7, 8. We're looking
at 1 through 8, verse 4, about Mary's sheer exaltation and magnifying
the Lord God. His servant, Israel, in remembrance
of His mercy, as He spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to
his seed forever. He's going back and recounting
what God has done in church history. And, I promise you, I cannot
stress this enough, You get, and hopefully you'll never get
over just the fact that he's safe. You just go back like a
little kid and just remember the first, just remember the
first, you know, he's the firstling
of the flock and we follow that. And we're as little children
and you remember with tear in the eye and smile on your cheek
and just think about what he's done and what he's doing to you,
what he did yesterday and the day before. But it's not wrong. Go back in this book. and to
see, recount, what He has done for His brethren in time past. What He has done for brethren
in your own personal situation in time past who maybe the Lord
has taken home. Maybe Henry Mahan. Maybe Scott Richardson. Jack
Shanks. I knew all those men. And I recount
the things they said when they were going through difficult
times and trials. But this last section, Mary has,
as do all believers, they know their scriptural scroll, in her
case, she knew her scroll history. And those wonderful promises
God makes to all His dear children. Psalms 98. Psalms 98. Verse 1, 2, and particularly
verse 3, O sing unto the Lord a new song, for He hath done
marvelous things. His right hand and His holy arm
have given Him the victory. The Lord hath made His salvation,
His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered His mercy
and His truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the
earth have seen the salvation of our God. He hath remembered.
God will never forget a promise that He has made to His people
by covenant foundation to every one of His elect. They're there. Grab them. Scoop them up. They're
yours. If you know Him, they're yours.
So this is what Mary... She's rejoicing and then it's
like something comes in her head and she's like, But this is what
he said he was going to do. But we doubt it all the time. I don't know whether in this
room or this country, we doubt whether we'll have enough food
or not. But we get concerned about money, about jobs, about
positions, about titles, about the Lord. He's taking care of
me up to this point, but now I've got to put him on the side
and make sure I've got all my ducks in a row and this and that.
We always do that. There's nothing wrong with being
prepared. But there is something wrong
with being prepared and presuming on God's Word, just casting Him
aside. Oh, to live more like Abraham that was fully persuaded,
fully persuaded in his soul, his heart. As he spoke to our
fathers, as he spoke to our fellow believers, as he speaks to those
of the household of faith, they hold on it. They hold on
it. As He spake to our fathers, to
Abraham and to his seed forever. He is God, He cannot lie. He
cannot lie. So I ask us four things this
morning. One, has God been miraculous
to you? Salvation is a miracle. Secondly,
has He shown us mercy to which we do not deserve. Thirdly, then
I tell you, if He has, number one and number two, if the answer
is yes, and yes, you will rejoice and be exceedingly glad for every
ounce of it, every ounce of salvation, every ounce of grace. Like the
passage that Matt and Tara like, His mercies are new every morning. Do we see Him every morning?
No, we're kind of too busy complaining about this. The oven didn't turn
on. I want my bacon and egg. You
know, something. We were talking this morning. The brethren in
Africa. Come on. John Claude made a comment
to me one time, and I understood it, but I didn't understand it
for a while. I said, well, bring them over here. Bring some of
those pastures over here. He said, no, I won't do it. It would destroy
them. He said it would destroy them.
Why? They'd come over and see the amount of plenty that we
have, how many of us have, this is for the women, how many of
us have two or three pair of shoes in our closet? No, no.
I'm just saying this. I'm the same way with my clothes,
or whatever. He said it would destroy them
if they came over here because we have so much in this country. So I tell you, if God has been
miraculous to you, if God has shown you mercy, which we do
not deserve, then we will rejoice and be exceedingly glad for every
ounce of it. And just go back and look at
these verses that Mary... And lastly, I tell you to go
forth in faith like Mary, claiming all His promises to us and therefore
live in peace and rest all of our days here. Because as you
get older and you can't do stuff, You walk in that garage and you
look at that thing and you say, why have I been hanging on to
this for five... I don't need this. I don't need this. We begin to look out instead
of looking within. It's not about self. And whatever happens, they find
a spot in your lung, they find a spot in my lung or my belly.
You say, I'm your handmaiden, do what
you seem is right. And I know it's easy for me to
stand up here, everybody's healthy, and say that. But do we believe this gospel? Do we trust in Him? This place
is nice, but this is the nicest place we've ever been. We met
in homes, we met at rental property, And the Lord finally opened this
up. And when we've had pastors come
in and they say, this is pretty nice. I said, yeah, it's more than
what we deserve. Because, I mean, really, we were fine at the other
places. But in this country, if you kind
of want to get some people to come, you know, they kind of
think it's a cult if you're meeting in a home. And we are concerned about these
things, but may our focus not be... And I thought about this
this week. Every time something happens, the Lord says, follow
me. What about this guy? What does that mean? Follow me. Follow me. Let's follow Christ
together. That's the local ecclesia. We're all following Christ together. Go forth in faith like Mary,
He spake to our fathers, and to our seed, that's me, what
He said to our fathers. And they looked at those promises
afar off. They didn't have the New Testament
Scriptures. The full canonization wasn't realized. We have that. And you'll have peace and rest,
though you may have less. And then you'll say with Mary,
My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in
the God of my salvation. My Savior, my Redeemer, my Redeemer
liveth. And you should be able to say
as Job, one day these eyes, not another, these eyes. Right now
it's by faith, not by sight, but then one day these eyes are
going to behold All this stuff we think is important, all these
divisions that we're so earnest in keeping up, it's going to
be scattered. And we'll see how foolish we
have been, but we'll see how great His grace has been to the
likes of us. Matt, would you close us?