Rejoicing in His Coming

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Transcript:

We went through a pretty big deal this week, didn’t we, with the Christmas season. You know, it’s amazing to me how in 2014, we are in almost 2015 now, my goodness, we are in a point in our culture where the name of Christ offends people, anything to do with Christianity offends people, and yet the world still stops. The world still stops because he was born.

That’s pretty incredible to me. I was driving to my grandmother’s house on Thursday for Christmas and did some driving elsewhere throughout the day. And I passed at least two Walmarts and they were closed.

And it occurred to me, it literally took God being born to close Walmart. It took an act of God to close Walmart. But you know what?

God’s son was born. God in the flesh came to earth. and you know what, I know there are people out there who don’t believe it, who ridicule it, and that’s fine.

They’re going to talk to God about that one of these days. But it’s true. God came to earth and that still is a pretty big deal. And that’s what we celebrated on Thursday.

That’s what we celebrated with our families. That’s what we celebrated with our kids. My son sort of understands that it’s Jesus’ birthday.

Now, he doesn’t know what all that entails, and I’ve not even tried to explain it to Madeline. She doesn’t quite get it yet, although she did sit there for the Christmas story on Christmas Eve. But it threw him, really, why all the presents for him on Jesus’ birthday?

I still don’t understand that either. But that’s what we were celebrating, because it was the birthday of the Son of God, And yet in that birth, God gave us the greatest possible gift that anybody’s ever been given, which was sending his son to be born and to live a perfect life and to die for us. And that’s what the whole ordeal was about.

And we go through the celebration of Christmas, and kids are better at this than we are. We get to a certain age, and we stop being excited about things. And, oh, you bought me a tie.

Thank you. How many, either of you men ever feel that way? Oh, it’s a tie.

I’m excited. I like ties. I collect them.

But we get things that we as adults go, oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you for that. How did you know?

I was excited. Everything I got was something to eat or something to wear. And at this point in my life, what else do I need?

But kids, especially kids my kids’ age, are still to the point where they’re excited by everything they get. Everything is cause for rejoicing. I don’t care if it was the $50 Thomas the train play set.

Yay, I got a train. I don’t care if it was underwear. Yay, I got the, you know, he was excited about everything.

Madeline was excited about everything. You know, there’s rejoicing at the gifts that they were given. I think we need to try to rediscover that a little bit as adults and learn how to do that some more.

We need to rejoice and be thankful that the gifts were given. Just like a little child. You know what?

So many things that are taught in the Bible would come so much more easily for us if we’d just be like little kids. I think it says something about that in there, doesn’t it? Faith as a little child or unless you come to me like these children, you’ll not come at all.

Paraphrasing, of course. I want to go back to where we were about two weeks ago, three weeks ago, I guess, at this point. And we’re going to finish out my illness and then my sudden conviction of the Holy Spirit that I was supposed to go another direction.

The last Sunday I was here sort of threw off my schedule for the Christmas season, but that’s all right. It doesn’t have to be over and we’ll finish out the year talking about the birth of Christ. We’re going to go back to where we were in Luke chapter 1. And we’ve talked about God’s message to Zacharias.

We’ve talked about through the angel Gabriel. We’ve talked about various things. We’ve talked about the prophecies.

I want to look this morning at Mary’s response. Now, everything that we’ve done over the last week has been in reference to him being born. And you’ve got to go sometimes and put yourself in the shoes of the characters in these Bible stories.

I say characters and stories not as though I think they didn’t happen. They really were true. But I say that in the same way I would say, put yourself in George Washington’s shoes in the story.

or put yourself in Winston Churchill’s shoes in the story. Real people, real things that happen, and we forget that sometimes. And if an angel came to you and said, I know you’re not married, I know you’ve never been with a man, but you’re pregnant and the child is going to be God’s.

Okay, first of all, I would be dumbfounded for obvious reasons. I’m a man. But even if I was a woman, that would be hard for me to swallow.

I don’t care how much faith you have in God. That would be a lot to take in. And Mary, I’m sure for her, it was a lot to take in.

And yet such was this woman’s faith that she actually rejoices at the gift that she’s about to be given. And I think that from watching her reaction to what’s about to take place, that we can learn also how we ought to respond to the news. Even though it’s not news we’re hearing for the first time, but every time we hear this news about the fact that God sent his son.

I think there’s a response of rejoicing that we ought to have. And it says in verse 46, and Mary said, my soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Her soul had magnified the Lord.

Now, a magnifying glass, what does it do? What’s it do? I saw one back there.

What’s it do? It makes the little words bigger. And it can make things that are bigger, even bigger.

because God’s not tiny. And yet to magnify God, to magnify him for her soul to magnify him means to make him a big deal. Now, God’s already a big deal, but to make him an even bigger deal, to glorify him, to praise him. And that’s what she says she’s doing.

My soul doth magnify the Lord. We would say it today. She’s making God the big deal that he really is.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my savior. Now, we can very easily read over that very fast. She’s rejoicing in God. She’s rejoicing.

Well, first of all, that’s a pretty tall order. I’m going to rejoice and be excited and be thankful at this news I’ve been given. If I’m Mary, I’m still standing there going, what just happened?

Did anybody else see that? But she’s already moved on to rejoicing. But also she says she rejoices in God her Savior.

Now God her Savior, first of all, the name that they were told that he would be called Jesus means that God is salvation. God saves. But that’s indicating to me right there faith in the promise that she was just given.

Because they were told all throughout this that the Messiah would come and save his people from their sins. And so not only is this rejoicing and thanksgiving that God’s going to give her this child and he’s going to be incredible, but this is faith in the promise of God, that this child really would be the Messiah, and he would be everything God has promised up to this point, that he would be salvation, that he would be a light to Israel and to the Gentiles. Verse 48 says, For he hath regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden, for behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

And this, there’s some teaching that needs to be understood out of this verse, because I believe in this verse we see the proper understanding of Mary and who she is. Now, there are some churches that are meeting even this morning that need to understand and look at the first part of that verse, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. Who is she?

She’s a person. She’s a woman. She talks about her low estate.

Your low estate means you’re down here and you’re humble and you’re nobody. And you know what? in contrast to a holy God, we are all of low estate.

We are all nobody. I don’t care if you’re the person in the gutter or if you’re the queen of England. You are of low estate.

And she recognizes her place. Ladies and gentlemen, she’s not the queen of heaven. She’s not the co-redemptrix.

She’s not the one who helped redeem. She’s not mediating between us and God. She is a person of low estate just like the rest of us.

And she calls herself the handmaiden of the Lord. She is his servant, not anything near his equal. And Mary herself admits that she is nowhere near being equal or even on par or even on the same planet at this point as God. And there are, as I said this morning, there are some churches, and I need not name names because you all are nodding your heads and you understand.

There are some churches this morning who need to understand. She’s just a woman. And yet, it says, after the colon in the verse, For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

And that’s where we as non-Catholics need to get it together. We sort of run so far away from Mary that because they have put such emphasis on her and elevated her to this status that no human being has or should ever be afforded, that if it sounds like we’re at all showing Mary any attention or respect, we run from that because we don’t want to be thought of as worshiping Mary. And rightly so.

We shouldn’t want to be thought of as worshiping Mary. And yet we’ve got to understand there was something in this woman that God saw and highly regarded. The Bible says that the angel said that she was favored among women.

Now she’s still just a woman, just a human, sinful, mortal like you and me. And yet there’s something in her that God looked at and said, I choose you to be the one who brings forth my son. And you know what?

From henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed. that’s exactly right. Not because she’s perfect or because she’s divine or she’s somehow, but because she out of all the normal human beings on earth, God chose her to be the vessel that would bring this blessing to mankind.

And can you imagine, can you imagine what kind of honor that has to be? And so I think we’ve got to find some kind of middle ground between, I would think we could find some kind of middle ground between worshiping Mary and completely running from Mary. We need to understand that she’s just a person like you and me, and yet she was a person through whom God did something incredible.

And she’s a woman that God chose to bless. And she ties in this blessing, not to her being wonderful or out of the ordinary, but in verse 49, because of what God did in and through her. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is his name.

She was not causing the Messiah to be brought forth. She was not causing herself to be blessed. It was he that is mighty.

God had done these incredible things. And holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

You know what? If nothing else, it could be that God used her because she feared him and was willing. Now, there were a lot of people who feared God, but maybe she feared him in a way that others didn’t.

Maybe, and I say fear, I’ve said before, you know, we’ve gone too far one direction of saying that fear. Well, that just means a healthy respect. No, no, I read the Old Testament, and I think we ought to be a little afraid of him, too.

Yes, he’s our father. Yes, he’s our friend, but he’s also the God who created this whole universe with the words of his mouth and is going to bring the whole universe to an end with the words of his mouth. I mean, you’ve got to have fear of that kind of power.

No matter how loving he is and no matter how close we’re supposed to be, It should not be a case of familiarity breeding contempt. But she feared God maybe in a way that others didn’t, where she actually was going to believe his promises, whether they seemed likely or not, because he’s God and whatever he says goes. His mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

He hath shown strength with his arm. He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts by sending Christ to be born in the way that he was. Now she recognizes here, I’m nobody rich.

I’m nobody famous, I’m nobody powerful, I’m nobody spectacular. It really was unlikely that the Messiah would be born in the situation he was to this unmarried peasant girl and be born in a stable and laid in a feeding trough wrapped in rags. Now, what they were looking for was a Messiah who would be born as a king.

And you know what? That’s what we would do. But God has so much more imagination.

God is so much more creative than we are. And he was born to her in a way that put all of the strong, all of the mighty, all of the wise to shame. It confounded them and it confounds them still.

The smartest among us still grapple over what it is God’s done. The mightiest among the mighty kings of the earth at that time could not have accomplished what God did. And he’s shown strength with his arm.

You want to talk about strength? Talk about the strength that by the word of your mouth and by the promises you make, you can go around biological processes. You can create laws of science at will.

That’s pretty strong. And he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. All the people.

All the people who were looking for the Messiah to come and be this proud, regal figure who would lead them in this golden age where surely, you know, the religious and political elites thought that they would be at the top rungs of his hierarchy in his kingdom. And yet he scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts when he came. And not only was he born in such humble circumstances, but the first people that his birth was proclaimed to.

It wasn’t sounded in the courts of Herod. It was announced to shepherds. A bunch of men outside of civil society, outside of town, watching sheep.

and he hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. That goes along with what I’ve just been talking about. And he says, God says in other places, that he humbles the proud.

He hath put down the mighty from their seats. He exalted them of low degree. God, in sending Jesus Christ, completely shook up everything they thought they knew.

The Pharisees. You don’t have to read too many pages past this in the Gospel of Luke and in the other Gospels to see Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees. And they thought they were the righteous ones.

Everybody thought these were the godly people, but by his teaching, he said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and scribes, you will not see the kingdom of heaven. Everything was going to be turned upside down. 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. You know what? God didn’t owe Israel anything.

God didn’t, God, you know what? We need to get this through our heads. Maybe I need to get this through my head and y’all already understand this.

But God doesn’t owe us anything. God didn’t owe them anything. God doesn’t owe us anything.

God doesn’t owe me anything this morning except death, hell, and separation from him. And the sooner I understand that, the sooner any of us understand that, the sooner we get away from thinking, well, God, why did you let this happen to me? Or why did I not get that?

God doesn’t owe us anything. Any good thing we get from God, we should be thankful for because it’s his mercy. He didn’t owe us that.

And he doesn’t owe us more. That’s a hard thing to wrap our minds around sometimes. And yet God, even though we’ve sinned against him, even though we have defied him, even though we’ve rebelled, and all he owes us, all he’s obligated to us for is death and hell.

God in his mercy remembers the promises that he’s made to restore what we’ve destroyed. And so it has nothing to do with what we deserve. It has everything to do with what God is good and what God is willing to give.

And he said that she says in verse 54, he’s helped his servant Israel. They didn’t deserve a Messiah. They didn’t deserve a Savior.

They didn’t deserve redemption. But he hath helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. Because he was merciful.

Because he promised. God has sent a savior that Israel did not deserve. As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.

And Mary abode with her about three months. That’s with Elizabeth, where we talked about a few weeks ago. About three months and returned to her own house.

So she stayed there until about the time that John the Baptist was born. I didn’t realize until I started having kids. It’s actually 10 months until they’re born.

It’s not nine months. I don’t know where that comes from because it’s 40 weeks. And 40 divided by 4 is 10.

So there you go. There’s your biology lesson for today. But she stayed until close to the time because she got there shortly after Elizabeth was six months along, stayed there for three months.

And then it says she stayed until shortly before, in verse 57, when she gave birth to John the Baptist. But Mary’s response to this whole thing is so improbable. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. I’m not saying I don’t believe it.

I do. I’m just saying it’s so unlikely to find somebody who would respond this way to what she was just told. And yet throughout this whole thing, she rejoices.

She gives thanks to God. She doesn’t sit there and wonder and sit there and say, well, God, how, as she did earlier, say, how shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And she’s not saying this can’t happen.

She’s saying, okay, I get that this is going to happen. How? But she doesn’t sit here and ask questions forever and say, but God, you didn’t think of this.

It’s this amazing response of thankfulness, of what God is going to do in and through her, and of rejoicing for the man that he is sending to Israel. And I want to look at just a few things that she gives thanks for this morning about Jesus, and then we’ll be dismissed. She gave thanks and she rejoiced because the Messiah knew her, knew his people.

The Messiah, ladies and gentlemen, we can give thanks this morning because the Messiah that God promised, the Messiah he sent, knows us. It says in verse 48 that God had regarded the low estate of his handmaiden, and for behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Now Mary, as I’ve said before, was just a humble peasant girl.

She calls herself a low estate. She was, and I don’t want to say this, I don’t want to sound mean when I say this because I say about me sometimes, she was a nobody. She was nothing special, at least outwardly, at least from the world’s perspective.

She wasn’t rich. She wasn’t famous. She wasn’t powerful.

Who was she? She’s not somebody that the powerful people of this world were beating down the doors to get to know. And yet God, the God who created the universe, knew her by name, knew who she was, and picked her out.

And you know, there are a lot of religions today that are being practiced, even this morning in our world, where the adherents of those religions will tell us, yeah, the deity, whichever deity they’re serving, there’s no personal relationship there. And yet we serve a God who knows our name. We serve a God who loved us enough, who cares enough to know who we are.

I mean, that’s incredible. It’s the most powerful entity in the entire universe. Created us all.

I know I said this already, but created us all with the words of his mouth. Created all of this. just with the words of his mouth and could destroy it all and yet knows his servants.

And we’re not just talking God the Father here because God the Son was with him in creation. Have you ever wondered why it says let us make man in our own image? Don’t listen to the History Channel.

It’s not aliens. Some of y’all look like you. Is that a joke?

No, they really say that. It’s not aliens. That’s the Trinity.

That’s God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Let us make man in our own image. It’s clear throughout the New Testament that He was there and that He made all things and by Him and for Him all things are and consist. And a God that powerful came to be born and knows us and loves us. And the Bible says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And before, you know what, I want to say from the time of conception, He knows us, but that’s even too short. Before conception, He knows us. He knew us from before the foundation of the world.

He doesn’t owe us that. He doesn’t have to do that. And yet Mary points out that we have a God, we have a Messiah who loves us and knows us.

And we can rejoice in that. That we don’t serve a God who’s a stranger. We don’t serve a Savior who’s a stranger this morning.

Second of all, we can rejoice as Mary did because our Messiah came to save us. You know how awesome it would have been for them if the Messiah had come as they had expected, and he’d been somebody like Judas Maccabees hundreds of years before, who came to start a revolt. My pronunciation’s revolting this morning.

If he’d come to start a revolt and kick the Romans out and start this wonderful golden age kingdom, almost sort of like King Arthur and Camelot, but in Israel, started this millennial kingdom, how wonderful it would have been for them, And yet, a human Messiah they were looking for like that would have eventually died, and things would have gone back to just the way they were. And that’s the way. You look at all the golden ages that any country has ever had, and they’re all behind them.

Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, they fell. The Romans fell. The British Empire, you know, look at all of it.

It goes away. And our Messiah’s job wasn’t to come and set up a perfect golden kingdom here on earth, at least not at this point. he came to save us.

His mission as he pointed out later in Luke 19. 10 was to seek and to save that which was lost. And she says in verses 46 and 47 my soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. She recognized then and there that the reason the Messiah was coming was the promise in the Old Testament that so many had missed.

Not to come and set up this perfect state but to deal with the problem of sin. that we couldn’t deal with on our own. And this morning, we can rejoice because our Messiah didn’t come to set up a perfect kingdom.

He didn’t come to teach everybody how to act right and be nice to each other. He came to save us. Now, all of that other stuff that the Bible teaches is important, and it’s in there.

But His purpose in coming the first time was to show us how we could be saved and have a relationship with God, how we could avoid the wrath and judgment that we deserved. I don’t know about you, but if we have nothing else going for us this morning, that’s something to be excited about. That’s something to rejoice about, that He came to save us.

Third of all, this morning we can rejoice because our Messiah is mighty. Yes, He came with the intent of saving us, but He also had the power to do so. Because she talks about in verse 49, for He that is mighty hath done to me great things and holy is His name.

She says that he’s mighty, that his power is incredible. He was able to do something impossible in her life, and she recognized it. It says in verse 51, He hath showed strength with his arm and hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. There’s no end. There’s no limit to his power.

Not only God the Father, but God the Son as well. As I’ve already mentioned, I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot today. You know what?

That’s okay. We learn through repetition. But he was there with God the Father at creation.

He was there with God the Father when all of this was decided, when all of this was formulated. He was there with God the Father when he flooded the earth. And you know what?

He’s got this incredible power. And we look forward in the book of Revelation talks about coming day whereby the words of his mouth he defeats the armies of darkness. And I love, I wish I could remember what the sermon was called and find it because I’d listen to it on CD all the time.

I was driving on I-40 and about to jump out of my seat listening to Adrian Rogers talk about that very thing. When Jesus, by the very words of his mouth, tells the armies of darkness that march all over the face of the earth, and he was speculating here, but he says, Drop dead, and Satan can do nothing by the words of his mouth. That’s a mighty God.

That’s a powerful Messiah we serve, who not only makes promises to us, but has the power to back them up. Fourth of all, we can rejoice because our Messiah is holy. You know, there are a lot of messianic figures who come to this world, and sooner or later they all disappoint their followers, don’t they?

You know, we can look at, you know what, I’m not going to go into examples, because this is not the right time for politics, not this message. But we could look at all sorts of leaders, both sides of the aisle, outside this country. All sorts of people that men flock to say we’ve got to follow him.

And then they all end up falling short and disappointing the people who follow them. You know what? Even outside of politics, we are in a society that worships celebrities.

Are we not? Football players, we worship. Basketball players, Hollywood starlets, they all have a following.

And why? Why is it that it seems so many times we elevate the worst people in our society to the positions of greatest influence? Now, I’m not saying that everybody who acts or plays football is a horrible person, but my goodness, some of the people who are most worshipped in our society are some of the worst among us.

People think, oh, just follow this person and everything will be fine. Well, that’s a Messiah figure to them. And then they all end up falling.

There is a scandal. They do something wrong. They beat somebody in an elevator. I can’t even remember that guy’s name.

But something happens. And they let us down. And you’d think we’d learn our lesson, but we’d go right on to the next human Messiah figure.

You know what? We serve a Messiah who’s holy. We serve a Messiah who is without blemish or imperfection.

She said in verse 49, For he that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is his name. Not only is the name of the Father holy, but the name of the Son is holy as well. Even His name, even His name is holy to be treated with reverence.

Fifth of all, we can rejoice because our Messiah is merciful. You know what? He could destroy us.

He could punish us. He could unleash His wrath on our sin and one day He will do that. The Bible says not to be deceived.

God is not mocked for whatsoever man sows, that will He also reap. It also tells us that God is not slack concerning his promises, as some count slackness. And what that means is, where is God?

Why is he not judged this sin? How long is he going to let people get away with this? And the Bible says God is not slack.

He’s not lax concerning his promises. He’s not forgotten what he’s promised, as some men count slackness. But he’s merciful and not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

There will come a day when Jesus will be the judge. There will be a day when our Messiah will stand in judgment over the quick and the dead, and he will mete out the punishment that is deserved. What a fearful thought.

He’ll pour out the wrath and the judgment that’s deserved, and yet he’s merciful, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It says in verse 50, And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. It says in verse 53 and 54, He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. The Bible talks about his mercy. The whole reason for Jesus coming was to bestow mercy on those who did not deserve it.

And so there will be a day when he will pour out judgment and wrath on those who have rejected him and his mercy. But not first without the offer of mercy. And I’ve said it so many times, y’all are probably tired of hearing it.

But if God had looked at us in our sin and said, I’m done with you, and just wiped us out and sent us to hell, then he would have been completely justified in doing so. There would have been nothing wrong with that. And yet, just because he desired to extend mercy to us, he sent Jesus Christ. That’s the whole reason the Messiah came, was for mercy.

And that’s cause for rejoicing this morning. And finally, we can rejoice because our Messiah is faithful. It says in verse 55, as he spake to our Father.

She’s talking about all the things that he’s doing. in his mercy, in his strength. And then it says, as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.

God had been promising a Messiah since the days of Abraham. And even before that, you know, there are things that even back in the garden, I look at and say, that’s pointing to Jesus. Talking about the man who would crush the serpent’s head and whose heel would be bruised.

That’s Jesus. I go back even further. The covering of skins points to Jesus because the innocent there had to die for the sins of the guilty.

And God, for all this time, been promising these things to his people, to those who feared him. And a lot of people make a lot of promises, don’t they? Oh my goodness, there are promises, just money-back guarantees, and you may not ever see that money again.

Campaign promises? Yeah, right. There are promises that are made and broken in our society all the time.

We’re almost to the point we don’t think anything about it, or we feel like we have to do something extra beyond just giving our word to convince people we really mean it. The pinky, I don’t, I still don’t know where my son got that, but it’s not worth the pinky it’s made in. But we have to promise, or we have to solemnly swear to tell the truth.

What just happened to what Jesus said about letting your yes be yes and your no be no? But we live in a world of broken promises, and we get to the point we don’t think anything about it, and yet we serve a Messiah who is faithful to what he promised, who always, hear me on this, He always, always, always keeps His promises. It may take 4,000 years, but He keeps His promises.

It may come in a way we don’t expect, but He alwa