Luke 1:39-56 with Aaron Searles

Transcript

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So today uh we're continuing on in our Luke series. We're gonna be in Luke chapter 1 verses 39 through 56. So if you got one of your journals, uh that's where we're at. And then uh if you are visiting today, we have free journals, Luke journals, illuminated journals, for you to take notes, write down. We're gonna be in Luke for a very long time. So just uh encourage you to join with us in that as we go verse by verse. It's a joy to do this together and to learn and to you know walk through God's story, this this uh the good news together. Uh but I want to start off talking to you about my mom. I love my mom, she's here. Hey mom. And uh it was her birthday this week. I didn't ask her how old she was, but we uh had lunch together. And we were at lunch, and so she um we were wrapping up lunch. She had one request. She needed some technology help. And uh she wanted to listen to music on her phone, her smartphone. So I helped her download the you know the current music app that everyone's using, and I gave her a tutorial and how to create a playlist and how to add songs to her playlist. And uh she had a list, a handwritten list of the songs that she wanted on her playlist. And so I started putting in the songs for her, started doing the first couple myself. Worship song, worship song, add another worship song, add another worship song. I think they're all worship songs, all written down. My mom wants to worship Jesus throughout our day. Keep singing songs and listening and focusing on Jesus. The nice thing about having these devices, right? Let's count the pros. There's a lot of cons, but one of those pros is we can worship Jesus throughout our day. And so I highlight that today, highlight my mother's example to me and to us. We're gonna be talking about worship today. Talking about a song, Mary's song. So this happens after there's some angel conversations with Zechariah and with Mary, who we know is named Gabriel. And we learn that uh John is going to be born in a miraculous way, we know that Jesus is also coming. And we focused on that last week, and we we talked about this question: who is this Jesus? We talked about the meaning of his name and where that comes from, and all the things that are prophesied about him, and there's no question about who he is in his birth, in his um divinity, being placed in the womb of Mary, being overshadowed. And we also know that at the end of this angel Gabriel revealing to Mary that she is going to be a virgin and give birth to Jesus, to the Savior of the world, to the promised one, to the anointed one, to the King of Kings, to the Holy One. But she is given a provision. She's given a name. She's given a name to go visit. And her name is Elizabeth. So we have this conversation with Zechariah, who we'll get into that imagining of how that conversation or that communication went later. But Elizabeth was a provision. Her barren womb is now carrying a miracle baby. A echo of Abraham and Sarah. But I think it's also interesting to think about this provision of Elizabeth. She is a trusted relative. She wasn't just given a random name to go visit someone, but someone that she just immediately can trust, a family member. I recognize we all can't trust all of our family, but we're assuming this in this situation as we'll see. Also, it's interesting, is it's going to be a journey, but this relative is accessible. So somebody that Mary can go visit and talk to, as we'll get into. And there's also this shared mutual conversation, this divine encounters that they can share that we'll read about today. So let's do that. We're going to read right now Luke 1, verse 39 through 45, and then we'll kind of go back and go through parts of this. So it says this. And she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when she when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. So Mary with haste goes on a journey. She takes literal, actual steps of faith in obedience to what was told to her, to go meet with Elizabeth. And this reminded me of the verse in Timothy: do not let anyone look down on you because you're young. But set yourself an example. You think about Mary setting an example here. And it's a mystery with that. But she is setting an example. And so I wondered about this journey, Nazareth to the region of Judah. And I wondered about if she did this journey by herself. I can't imagine a 14-year-old girl going on this journey all by herself. We don't have any other details, so that's a mystery, but it's approximately an 80 to 100-mile journey. In those days in the first century, taking approximately three to four days. Can you imagine a 14-year-old girl going on that kind of journey? I do think it's maybe an obvious observation, but Mary knew or knew how to find Elizabeth. So again, she's accessible. She's somebody she knows, she knows how to get to where she lives, where Zachariah lives, who was a priest. So it is the region of Judah. So she knew that. And so just a moment to pause, to reflect now for you. Again, Elizabeth was a provision to Mary, a relative, a trusted person of faith in her life. And I invite you and ask you to reflect who was that person in your life that helped confirm your faith? That helped encourage you in knowing Jesus and loving Jesus? And knowing that you weren't crazy, knowing that Jesus is real. Who was that person in your life? Maybe it was a family member, a friend, maybe a coworker, a neighbor? Who helped equip your faith to believe in Jesus? God's rescue plan for humanity, though, involves this resurrected womb. Elizabeth was called barren. And it also involves a virgin womb. And just thinking about Mary's experience, Mary's perspective, walking into this moment, to this encounter with Elizabeth, to this conversation. And I wondered about how she how did she prepare her, you know, speech. So I talked to this angel the other day. How did she, you know, how did she prepare herself for that moment? And I think it's interesting. She didn't have to do that. Right away. Right away. Her faith was solidified in stone by Elizabeth prophesying, revealing the truth of what was already going on. There's no denial here that God is at work. And again, what's amazing, the pre-born John filled with the Spirit is leaping in Elizabeth's womb. This reminds me of a gentleman I used to know. That, you know, in worship, every now and then he would just kind of spontaneously just leap into the air. And I loved it. I loved just to see him every now and then jump into the air. He just couldn't contain it. He had to just jump into the air. And that reminded me of this. And really, only mothers can relate to this sensation that Elizabeth had. What she felt in her womb. As John did somersaults in hearing the mother of our Lord. And, you know, we asked the question, I read a commentary that asked this question why did John react this way in her womb? Well, he's a prophet. This is his destiny, this is his calling. As we talked about, he has the Holy Spirit from the womb. And he's a prophet. And what does a prophet do? They listen to God. Their sole mission is to listen to God and to proclaim God's truths, what they hear from God. And again, this commentary thought very interestingly said, this is a prophet and this is his first prophecy. He is leaping with joy. And again, it says, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Filled with the Holy Spirit. And you wonder why. Why was she filled with the Holy Spirit? What was that like? I recently had a conversation with someone about the Holy Spirit in this moment. You think about all the Holy Spirit activity going on in this moment. All the presence of God in this moment. Like the literal actual presence of God in Mary's womb. God in the flesh. Elizabeth now filled with the Holy Spirit to declare, to reveal, to, in a sense, to reveal what God is saying. As we read, in her womb, John has the Holy Spirit. So we see a lot of God's activity going on here in this conversation. In other words, everyone's filled with God. Everyone's filled with the Holy Spirit. It's an interesting mystery of the Trinity at work here. And so I wondered too, like, where's Zachariah? We don't see him on the scene yet. We'll see him later, but he's still mute. We know this. Until John is born. Spoiler alert, sorry. And, you know, one commentary suggested that he was deaf as well. So I imagine that conversation with Zachariah talking to Elizabeth. Again, mute, possibly deaf, trying to communicate with Elizabeth what the angel told him. And grabbing some type of writing utensil and paper or something. Again, would have been very expensive or maybe in the dirt. I don't know. But I would imagine the word angel, baby, you would have been maybe some words I would have thrown out if I were Zachariah. And I did think this would be the best game of charades of all time. How cool. Alright, go back to verse 42. And she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, your womb. And why this is granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me. For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. So Elizabeth was again filled with the Holy Spirit to prophesy. Again, before Mary could tell her story, she, why she was there, Elizabeth confirmed that what Mary was there for and what she was looking for. It kind of reminded me, and I just a side tangent of the story of the prodigal father seeing the son. And just the rescue there and how the prodigal father ran out and he didn't have to share his story. He just got immediate confirmation of God's love and God's return. But we have miracle of angels. We have resurrected wombs. We have virgin births, now divine revelation. And a baby leaping for joy. I remind us all that the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians is joy. Joy. Joy is received by God. It's not manufactured. It's not something you can learn. It's not something you can resource from yourself. It's from God. And this blessed pronouncement upon Mary for believing and visiting Elizabeth. So I just remind you, though, again about this joy that you ask for it, you get it, you receive it. And she makes again this blessed pronouncement upon Mary. Again, she highlights that Mary believed that she went on this journey by leaving Nazareth to come visit her. She recognized that faith that she had, that obedience that she had to do this. And again, back to joy. So why did she know that John had joy? Again, we know that he had the Holy Spirit. But John would say this later in his ministry. He's baptizing in the Jordan. Jesus is baptizing within eyesight. His, you know, other people. And John's disciples are kind of like, hey, what's going on? I thought we were, you know, I thought you were the preparer of the way. They kind of have some, maybe some jealousy a little bit. That's my. But John says this in response. This is John, the same John, John the Baptist, saying this later. This the same John who's leaping in the womb of Elizabeth. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom, the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease. He did his job. He prepared the way and he did it with joy. This was his mission. So again, Mary is an example to us. She sets an example. Do not let them look down on you because you're young. Mary, in haste, lives out her faith. She literally has to go on the faith journey. And I think we can consider that and reflect on that and think about God's activity in that and how amazing that is. Celebrate that. There's this book called Christian Atheist. It's it's the whole point of the book is kind of like believing in Jesus but living like he doesn't exist. And we all need that check. We all need that daily, regular, I know what I believe, I believe it, my eternity is secure in Christ. But are the choices that I'm making, is the way that I'm living in consistency, in unity with what I believe my eternity is secure in? Am I putting my faith in God? Am I living out my faith in action with my finances, with my behavior, with my relationships? Am I giving all to God? Or am I living like an atheist? Again, Mary's an example of us. And I would say the word I have for Mary is surrendered. She has surrendered all to Christ. And so I have an application for you, though, okay? This is a takeaway, and I'll re highlight this again at the end. But here's the application. With haste. With haste, as she did, run to Jesus confirming community. Again, there's some energy in that. There's some passion in that. There's some reality in that. As Mary, you know, with haste went to Elizabeth, we with haste run to Jesus confirming community in Christ. With Jesus in relationship to God. With again the people in your life. I encourage you and challenge you to do that, to be like Mary in that way. And there's a warning as well. There's a reality that we all face. Our enemy strategy is to divide, isolate, and destroy you. So you're here now. I recognize that. That's praise God. To God be the glory, you're here. This is where we need to be in Jesus confirming community, celebrating Him, loving Him, encouraging and equipping and challenging one another, pointing to God's word. But there will be a hardship in your life. There will be some friction. There will be some challenge. And I challenge you. Work it out. Be here. Have the conversations. To be in this community. When you go through hard times, don't figure it out alone. That's what the enemy wants you to do. But be in this community, be with followers of Christ. Our strength is in the flock with the shepherd. Sheep don't thrive alone. Again, I recognize the spiritual battle that it might even take to get here today. Maybe for the first time, to go through those doors and all the thoughts and emotions and things going on as you came to this place or to a house church or to a Bible study or to a spiritual conversation. I recognize the challenge of that. And again, I recognize also there will be resistance in the future, but we stay committed because we know of God's truth in our lives and through his community. Okay, so now that's kind of this encounter. Now we're going to go kind of into this kind of different structure, and it's a song. Mary sings a song. How beautiful, how wonderful. Verse 46 through 47. And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. This is wild if you think about it. She's worshiping God in her womb. And there's an interesting pattern here that we see. We see this testimony, this story shared. We see this truth proclaimed and revealed. Now we see worship. Again, we talked about Mary might have been illiterate, we don't know, but she wasn't uneducated. Her education was very likely by listening and in tradition and in song. According to some commentaries, she very likely knew the song of Hannah by heart. And you can almost connect Hannah's song to this song. And there are in this song that Mary sings, there's this the Old Testament throughout it. As we'll go through this. But let's continue on the next verse. For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant, for behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed. She recognizes her place without God, and now her place with God. She knows that she's from a no-name town, marrying a man from a forgotten royal bloodline. She knows she's a teenager, a young girl. She knows her humble estate. She also knows her humbled estate in historical context, on a national level. Mary is, again, in the context of a nation, a people humbled by the conquest and the occupation of the Roman Empire. This is Israel's story, though. God's faithfulness, God's sustaining this, his chosen people, outlasting oppressive empires like the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and now the Roman Empire. You can say that gives you faith, that's evidence, reason to believe. She again is prophetic. She knows her calling and what's going to happen. She knows by her surrendering to this, by being the virgin who gives birth to the Savior of the world. She knows that the future generations and this generation calls her blessed. Again, the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit through Mary, now written down by Luke, as we talked about the musician who writes down these songs in the beginning of his gospel. God's plan to reveal his good news involves the story of a humbled nation, a people in addition to his humble arrival. In other words, consequential humility in addition to the character of humility of Mary, and now the embodiment of humility, Jesus. God taking on flesh equals humility. Verse 49. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. So I just want to say thank you, Zach and Pedro and Tim. Song request was made. I wanted to sing great things. And we did that this morning because he has done great things. My students actually read this passage and they suggested that song because they just thought of that song. I was like, I think we can sing that song in my church on Sunday. That'll be cool. So we did that today. Thank you. He has done great things, and holy is his name, and God's name is holy. And holy means to be set apart. Mary in these verses goes in historical remembrance in her worship. She teaches us how to worship. Or God, by the Holy Spirit, inspires Mary and teaches us how to worship. This song names, you know, kind of declares and proclaims the names of God and the identity of God. God is a mighty God. He's holy and he's merciful, as we'll get into later. Again, God is mighty. He's all-powerful and he's holy. He's set apart. He's never sinned. He's perfect. And he relates to us in his mercy. That's the point of contact with us. This is who God is, but his mercy is how he's in contact with us because of what we deserve. So Mary defines to us, in a sense, teaches us that worship is about who God is: exalting him, adoring him. That's what we do in worship. We worship him. Verse 50. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. Mercy is the reward of those who fear God. Fear in a sense of awe, respect, and worship, recognizing your place before God. Recognizing his power. Recognizing his majesty, recognizing his holiness. And now mercy. Again, mercy is not getting what you do deserve. In other words, God holding back what you deserve, holding back the consequences of your sin. Again, what we deserve is death. The wages of sin is death. We deserve death. And all have fallen short of the glory of God. But God in his mercy takes our sin upon himself and dies in our place to atone for our sin, to wash us white as snow. Verse 51, He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. I have this visual of God just sweeping across the empires with his infinitely strong arm, you know, like the game of risk, just like the sound effect. Sorry, couldn't help it. 52. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. And I, you know, my thought went right away to Nebuchadnezzar. If you know the story of Nebuchadnezzar, he was humbled from his throne. And if you know the story of Joseph, Joseph was humbled, and God raised him up to be the prince of Egypt. And so Mary does this kind of past tense prophecy, kind of remembering and reminding of how God is shown, how God is scattered, how God is brought down, exalted, filled, sent, and helped. In other words, I would say, this has all happened in our history. Remember our history. And it's all coming true in Jesus. It's all coming true in Jesus. And this teaches us how to worship, to remember what God has done, to remember that He and He alone is the King of kings. And Israel is not an isolated nation. You know, sometimes we can think about this. This is a survival people. They're not, though. If you look through the Old Testament, they're a nation that by God's servants permeated every known empire in history. Think about Joseph, second in command, prince of Egypt, Jonah going to the Nineveh, Daniel, the Babylonians, Nehemiah, Esther. Israel humbled again, but has outlasted them all by God's hand only. Again, points to evidence for faith in Jesus. Verse 53. One thing that's become more and more kind of highlighted for me, this especially happened to me when we went through the Proverbs series, is that God cares about the poor. God cares about the poor. And these verses are related, if not almost quoted. You could almost see the connection of Hannah's song again. But again, Jesus has filled. Think about how God provided manna for them walking in the wilderness every day, one day at a time, getting the manna, getting the bread from God. And how Jesus said, I'm the bread of life. And think about Jesus when he was walking on earth, fed the 5,000 miraculously. And how now when we celebrate communion, we take communion, we remember that this is his body broken for us. So he fills the hungry. I'm reminded of a psalm I recently read, Psalm 42, verse 1 through 2. It says this as a deer pants for the flowing stream, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God. For the living God, when shall I come and appear before God? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. We hunger for God. And God is the only one who can satisfy. God is the only one who can fill you. Next two verses. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever. Again, generations here, God keeps his promise. Again, Jesus in his birth is the promise kept. The promise fulfilled. Throughout the generations, God continued to speak to the generations of his warnings, of his judgments, and his promises. And again, Jesus is the fulfillment. God keeps his promise because his character and because he's present in all time. So last verse today. And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home. So if you carry, if you do the math, you add up the numbers. Elizabeth, to me, was about nine months pregnant. I don't know if Mary was around when John entered the scene, but it's interesting that she spent significant time with her relative. Can you just imagine those conversations? Imagine that season of her life. Imagine the fellowship and the encouragement and the just like surreal. You can't fathom that. She said, the mother of my Lord. We know that this had happened. So she returns home three months pregnant. Again, Jesus in his birth is the promise keeper. So I just end with this. She travels back to Nazareth. She travels back home. Three months pregnant. And six months later, she'll travel back to the same region, which is the Christmas story. So I want to end with this today. In conclusion, I just want to highlight my two applications. And the key word is hasten. I say hasten to Christian community. You know, if you think about the story, this amazing conversation between Mary and Elizabeth, we have the same components of this wonderful conversation and song. We have the testimony. We have the story. We have encouragement. We can speak life into each other. We can speak encouragement to each other. We can recognize God's work in each other. We have faith. We have the truth. I want to highlight God. The Holy Spirit is here. Put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Invite him into your heart. Invite him into your life to transform every thought, every action, every part of you by putting your faith in him as your Lord and Savior who died for your sin. Conquered death on the third day. But I just challenge you to hasten to Christian community. Passionate for it. Commitment to it. Don't do it alone. Again, the enemy wants to divide and conquer you. We need each other. So the second application is hasten to worship like Mary. In adoration and exaltation. In remembrance of what God has done, the great things that He's done in your life. If you find yourself spiraling in stress and anxiety of the Christmas season, remember what God has done. Take some time to be thankful. Take some time to weigh your heart before God and to focus on the good things that He's done in your life and the things that you have. Hasten to worship like Mary in truth. I think it's amazing to think about how we can join the song of generations of believers worshiping our incarnate God who lived the perfect life, died in our stead, and conquered death. I love thinking about that. I love thinking about the generations that have worshipped Him. And we join in that song. Hasten to worship like Mary. Let's pray. God, we pray for us, Lord. We pray that you help us, God, to hasten to Christian community, God, to hasten to worship you in our lives, God. I pray for everyone in here, wherever they're at, in their journey, God. I pray that you help them to love you, God. God, if there's anybody in here that doesn't have faith, I pray that you help them to cry out to you, God, to invite you into their hearts to love you. God, I pray for forgiveness. Your superpower, God, in us and through us, to keep us unified. Help us to love one another, God. Help us to not keep record of wrong. And help us to worship God, not thinking about what other people think, and not thinking about anything else, but just being in love with you and singing to you and worshiping you, God. Help us to do that with our playlists on our phones, and help us to do that in our cars, and help us to do that in church and in the different places of our life, God, with our families, with our friends. To have courage to just love you. So, God, we pray you bless us as we go from here. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.