Luke 1:39-56
Please turn in your copy of God’s
Word to Luke’s Gospel, chapter one. Our reading today is verses
39 through 56. As I mentioned a few moments
ago when we read 2 Samuel, Hannah’s prayer, there’s a lot of parallel,
there are a lot of echoes in Hannah’s Old Testament song and
Mary’s New Testament song. These are today two of the five
songs we find in the New Testament. When God is at work redeeming
his people, people sing his praises. As we like to say around here,
saved people sing. Well, two of the saved people
we’ll read about, Mary, or I’m sorry, yeah, Elizabeth and then
Mary, they will sing. And so we will take a peek at
their faith and their knowledge and their joy in the work of
God. Let us hear God’s word together, beginning at verse 39 of Luke’s
gospel, chapter one. In those days, Mary arose and
went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah. She
entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when
Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her
womb. And Elizabeth was filled with
the Holy Spirit. 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
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. And Mary said, my soul magnifies
the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior, for he has
looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from
now on, all generations will call me blessed for he who is
mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who
fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his
arm. He has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts.
And he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted
those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with
good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped
his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our
fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. And Mary remained
with her about three months and returned to her home. Pray with
me. Our Lord and God, we would love
to have the faith and the zeal and the energy and the joy that
these two, Elizabeth and Mary display here in the scripture.
And it’s not farfetched for us to have that. So we ask that
by your word this day, by the power of your spirit this day,
you would remind us of all that we know to be true about your
wonderful and mighty hand in the work of redemption. All that
we’ve learned in the scriptures, all that we have heard over the
years in Sunday school and Bible reading and preaching. Take these
things and show us the joy of our salvation, that you are the
God who who stretches out his arm and saves a people. Show
us that this day and may that joy overflow in our hearts that
we can’t help but sing your praises. We ask for that grace and we
pray for it in Jesus name, amen. Yesterday in the afternoon after
some yard work, I was resting on the couch and was watching
the Winston-Salem Open, the local tennis tournament, where many
professionals come and play. And they do so in our own community,
our own backyard, as it were. And in watching that tournament,
the commercials that came on TV were very interesting. All kinds of things. There was
one particular commercial that came through about three or four
times that really caught my attention. And this is a very interesting
cultural phenomenon, I do believe. It showed a display of young
men who were, let’s just say for lack of a better word, were
effeminate in nature. And then they took the word masculinity
and said, here’s what it means in the dictionary. And I think
they went and found the worst definition you could find to
suit their purposes. And then these young men would
say, masculinity is me being human. Now I started scratching
my head and thinking to myself, Self, this doesn’t make sense.
Masculinity is what masculinity has always been. It’s being male.
It’s characteristics and features of manhood. We find definitions
of it in the Bible. And that commercial rolled a
few more times. And I got to thinking, this is
just more of this politically correct world where if we change
the definitions If we change the terms, if we change things
to suit us, we’ll have a happy little world. No longer do we
conform to a standard, standards conform to us. And we see it
all over our culture, not just with the definition of masculinity.
Another television commercial last night, different programming.
Pet commercials. Pet commercials with pet moms. and pet dads. Now, full disclosure,
I have a six-year-old poodle. Ninety-three percent of the time
we love him to death. But I am not his father. My wife is not
his mother. But we live in a culture that
has put away true motherhood. We live in a culture that has
abortion rates that are beyond the roof. Abortion rates to which
we ought to be embarrassed about. Yet we’re pet parents. Now, I
love my dog and I treat him like family. He’s the family dog.
He’s part of the pack. We understand all that. But we’ve
changed the terms. We’ve changed terms, not so that
we measure up to terms, but so that reality conforms to who
we are. And we’ve seen it in recent years
with the redefinition of marriage. We see it with the redefinition
of gender. And friends, we’re seeing it
before our very eyes in relation to the gospel. And I think the
number one culprit of those who are changing the terms of the
gospel, sadly, is the Church of Jesus Christ. I mean, it’s
one thing for the world around us to be doing whatever they’re
doing. But it’s another, isn’t it, when the church tampers with
the gospel? The gospel is the good news of
salvation through Jesus Christ. The gospel, dear brothers and
sisters, is our only hope. And if we tamper with it, we
have no hope for we have no gospel and we have no savior. And so
in our passage today here in Luke chapter one, we have a picture,
a story of two pious women. No, they’re two pious pregnant
women. We’ve seen in the stories we’ve
read from Luke’s gospel in the past couple of weeks, one is
a geriatric pregnancy, Elizabeth, a woman old in her age, barren,
unable her entire life to have a child by the miracle of God,
she and Zachariah. will soon, it’s six months in,
so three more months, they will have in their home John the baptizer,
the last great prophet before Jesus. And then we have a young
maiden, Mary, somewhere around the age of 12, 13, 14 years old. By the power of the Holy Spirit
at this point in time in the story, she has now conceived
and baby Jesus is in her womb. And so we have these two pious
pregnant women Both very godly, both giving us songs of the New
Testament, both giving us a glimpse of their faith. So I want us
to take a look at this passage from three perspectives. And
the first perspective is this, an awareness of the Lord at work. These two women have an awareness
of the Lord at work. You know, every week when we
get ready to hear God’s word and hear it both read and preached,
we ask for this. We pray, oh Lord, give us eyes
to see, give us ears to hear, give us hearts that perceive,
and give us hands and feet that go and do the work which you
have laid before us. Dear friends, that is exactly
the result we see in the lives of Mary and Elizabeth. They have
eyes that see, they have ears that hear, they have hearts that
perceive, and they have hands and feet and even bodies, wombs,
that are willing to do the work of redemption of God Almighty. They have an awareness of the
Lord at work. And I want you to know that to
have that awareness is a work of the Holy Spirit. You can look
with your human eyes at what is taking place in the world
and your human eyes will see despair. Your human eyes will
see poverty. Your human eyes will see injustice. Your human eyes will see world
hunger. Your human eyes will see all
sorts of social injustices and needs. And yes, they are true
and real. But a person of the spirit understands
that God is at work in this world, and this world is the way it
is because Adam and Eve sinned. And because of Adam and Eve’s
sin, we understand that God has cursed this world, that this
entire world, all creation is groaning under the power of sin. And as Paul says in Romans chapter
eight, it eagerly awaits the redemption or the adoption of
the sons and daughters of God. All creation is under travail.
We sing at Christmas beneath life’s crushing load. Forms are
bending low. But we also sing joy to the world.
The Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. He
comes to make his blessings known as far as the curse is found. Dear brothers and sisters, how
do you see the world? Do you see God at work? How do
you see the work of the church? How do you see your fellow worshipers?
Do you see God at work in them? Do you have eyes to see that,
ears to hear it, hearts to perceive it, hands to serve? We see that
this is a work of the Holy Spirit, for we know from last study that
John, John the baptizer in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth,
is already full of the Holy Spirit. Now that’s a rarity. He’s a special
case. The Spirit is at work in him
and John, when Mary enters the house. He does his somersaults,
he does his leaps. It’s in a sense, if you will,
John doing his first prophetic work. He’s saying in a sense,
dear mom, Jesus is in the house. Dear mom, the one of whom I will
proclaim as a voice crying in the wilderness in my adult years,
he is in this house in the womb of cousin Mary. There’s an awareness
of the Lord at work that the Holy Spirit gives us. And you’ll
notice as the passage goes on that Elizabeth, filled with the
Holy Spirit, exalts, she proclaims, she cries aloud. Now, how many
of you, when someone comes in your house, give a Holy Spirit
inspired exclamation? Usually we open the door and
as it’s swinging open, we’re turned around, headed back to
the kitchen, just say, oh, drop your purse anywhere. Glad you’re here.
But what does Elizabeth say? She says some of the most wonderful
words, some of the most wonderful words of New Testament song. Look at what she says in verse
42. She exclaimed, blessed are you
among women. And blessed is the fruit of your
womb. You see, she is aware that God is at work in the world through
this little bitty gal from Nazareth, who though not yet married has
conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. And she will bear
the Christ child whose name will be Jesus, which means he will
save his people from their sins. You see, she has eyes to see.
She understands something significant has come right in her living
room. Now, I don’t know. We can’t tell this, but remember
Zechariah’s mute. Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth,
was in the temple, remember, and when the angel Gabriel came
and announced to him what would soon take place, he did not believe.
And so God struck him mute and he won’t speak again until the
baby is born. But can’t you just imagine this
greeting taking place in the entryway of your own home and
you’re sitting over there mute because you didn’t believe? And
it’s been six months. And now right before your very eyes,
the Christ child in the womb of the Virgin Mary conceived
by the power of the Holy Ghost, the one who was promised to Eve
back in the garden, the one who will come and crush the serpent’s
head is in your living room. Can’t you imagine this scene?
Can’t you imagine the joy these two women share as they greet
one another? They’re excited for sure about
the pregnancies. Maybe they’ll make a little trip
to Babies R. Russ and Hebron there. Maybe they’ll go to Target
and get the little zapper and, you know, see couples going around
Target, they get the barcode zapper and they register for
their baby needs. Maybe they’ll do some motherhood
type things. They’ll make some sheets or blankets.
Who knows? But you know what they’re most
excited about? They’re most excited about the fact that the Lord
is at work. Now, remember, this is some 4000 years after creation.
This is some 400 years after the last prophet Malachi has
spoken to the people of Israel. This is six months after the
angel has visited Elizabeth. This is maybe a week or so after
the angel Gabriel has visited Mary. And they are very well
aware. They are keenly and acutely aware
that God is at work in their midst. Not only now, but for
the future, even throughout eternity. Now, I want you to notice that
in this awareness of the Lord at work, there’s a corporate,
there’s a church-wide nature to this, and there’s an individual
nature to this. Let me speak about the corporate
nature first. God is in the business of saving
his church. God is in the business of saving
a people from himself or for himself out of darkness, out
of the kingdom of Satan and into the kingdom of Christ, his son
and Lord, the kingdom of light. And when God is in the business
of saving people, we want to celebrate that. We want to see
the corporate nature of it. And we’ll see that Mary says
God has been good. He has remembered his promise
to Israel, the covenant promise to Abraham. And she is aware
by the spirit. They’re aware that God is at work in the world. There’s a personal nature to
it as well. Mary has been saved from her
obscurity. I mean, likely she grew up in
Nazareth, a place Nobody would ever really know about if it
weren’t for the Bible. She’s saved from maybe semi-poverty. She’s saved from being an obscure
little girl who lives an obscure little life and is never mentioned
in the history books. Oh, but is she mentioned now?
Maybe a little too much, but she’s mentioned. She’s aware
that the Lord is at work, not only in her life, but it’s personal
to Mary. It’s personal to Elizabeth. It’s
personal to you and to I. Just this week, one of our own
members, when asked, shared their testimony. And they gave the
details of the time and the date and the place and what was said
and what their response was. And each of you can do just that.
If you have tasted God’s grace, you remember that moment in time
when you realized that there is a savior and he saves us from
our sins and he saved you. He saved you from your sins,
not just Israel, not just the church, but he saved you. by name. He saved you individually. And now as you grow in God’s
grace, by the work of the Spirit, you are aware that the Lord is
at work in the world. Yes, you have a reality check.
You see the negative. You see the poverty. You see
the cultural and societal and justice needs of this world.
But you see most of all that we live in a world that needs
the gospel of Jesus Christ and that poverty and sickness and
disease and lack of privilege or injustice are Really small
pieces of the sin curse problem. But our greatest need is salvation
in Jesus Christ. So we see there’s an awareness
of the Lord at work. We also see belief in the promises
of salvation. Belief in the promises of salvation.
Mary has taken a little trip here. Mary has just had the angel
Gabriel in her house and told her, a very young gal, that she’s
going to conceive under the power of the Most High by the work
of the Holy Spirit. And in her womb will be Jesus,
the Messiah, the promised child, the long expected Jesus. And Mary is going to, with great
haste, make about a 100 mile trip from Nazareth to probably
Hebron. Now, Travel we know was not easy
back in those days. You didn’t call up an Uber or
do it on your app or however you do it. You didn’t hitch a
ride with a friend. You didn’t buy a ticket at the
bus station or catch the Metro, the Israeli Metro. You walked. And maybe, just maybe, you took
a donkey. or some other beast of burden.
But here is a young gal pregnant. She’s with child, with the Christ
child. And she has just heard through the message of the angel
Gabriel, your cousin Elizabeth, who was barren, is also with
child. And so there’s this there’s this
rush, this rush to to meet her. Can you imagine this event? Can
you imagine this trip, this travel? Here’s what I’m going to tell
her. And she’s reminding herself of all the things she’s learned
in Sunday school. Children, if your parents are
teaching you the Bible, if your parents are teaching you the
catechism, if you’re sitting in church and worshiping and
learning the hymns of the faith throughout church history, you
are blessed. Because you’re in good hands,
like Mary was. For how did the traditions, the
knowledge of the right hand of God saving his people, how did
they get past from one person to the other? They didn’t have
books. Like we do. They didn’t have the Jesus Storybook
Bible. They didn’t have the Read Aloud Story Bible. They didn’t
have the little, what was it, Veggie Tales and all that. stuff
we have today. No, it had to be told. And so
apparently, apparently faithful parents raised Mary, for how
else would Mary sing a song like she sang in the Magnificat? She
had a belief in the promises of salvation. And we see it in
this passage. Notice in verse 45, Elizabeth,
in her exclamation, in her exuberance to speak about the character
of her cousin, Mary. She says in verse 45, blessed
is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what
is spoken to her from the Lord. Mary believed in the promises
of salvation. She believed in the covenant
promise that was given to Abraham in the book of Genesis. We read
in chapter 13, chapter 15, chapter 17 of Genesis, where God appears
to Abraham and says, Abraham, I will be a God unto you. And your people shall be my people.
And I will bless you and the earth shall be blessed because
of you. And I will make a great nation
of you, a nation that will outnumber the sand, grains of sand on the
seashore. It will outnumber the stars in
the sky and the heavens. And from you will come a great
offspring, even Jesus. And she sees that the covenant
promises that she learned of in her home catechism, her home
learning, her Sunday school training, As it were, she sees that God
is keeping his word. His covenant of salvation is
coming true. They are being fulfilled in her
own womb. I want to say something. I think I’ve mentioned enough
about parenting. Parents, you should teach your
children the word of God. Let’s put it that way. But there’s
something here about woman to woman ministry. Let me encourage you, ladies,
you older ladies who know the word of God, you get with younger
ladies and you teach them the word of God. It may be your own
daughter. It may be your daughter-in-law.
It may be your granddaughter. But you make sure that a generation
does not arise as did so in the book of Judges, that does not
know the Lord, their God and what he has done for Israel. You see two very godly women
here ministering to one another, aware that the Lord is at work,
believing in the promises of salvation. The third thing I
want us to see from this passage is that we should glorify God
and enjoy him forever. Some of you know that as the
first question and answer of the larger and the shorter catechism. Man’s chief end is to glorify
God and to enjoy him forever. We say very often in this room,
saved people sing. And saved people do sing because
they have been saved from something to something. We’ve been saved
from sin. We’ve been saved from God’s wrath. We’ve been saved
from ourselves and our own wickedness. We’ve been saved unto salvation
through faith in Jesus. And we’ve been saved unto good
works, which were prepared before the world began for us to do. But not only do saved people
sing, humble people sing. We come to the cross empty. We
come to the cross like Mary, obscure people. We come to the
cross in humility because the great God of the universe, who
is the judge of the world, should have left us at bed in our sins
and trespasses. He should have said, you know,
fine, be sinners, be fruit eaters, be idolatrous. But he comes to us in the person
of Jesus and he saves us. And you see, Mary recognizes
that. Mary sees that God is at work. Mary sees that the chief end
of Mary is to glorify God. It’s to recognize her lowliness
and his greatness. And in her life, in her service,
her job is to glorify God. And so we have in Luke chapter
one, beginning at verse 46, we have what is called in church
history, the Magnificat, or it simply means to make great. Who
does, who does Mary make great here? I mean, in today’s Bible,
a young teenage girl would not have words here. What would she
have? She’d have a selfie and her hair would be just right.
Her body would be turned just right. And it would be a selfie,
right? And she would be making herself
great. But what does Mary do? She makes God great. She says,
my soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my
savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant
for behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed
for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy
is his name. His mercy is for those who fear
him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his
arm. He has scattered the proud, the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted
those of humble estate. And he has filled the hungry
with good things and the rich. He has sent away empty. He has
helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he
spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. What has Mary done here? She’s
made God great. She’s given us the magnificat. She’s given us her theology.
She’s given us what comes out of her heart when it is so filled
with joy at the awareness that the Lord is at work, at the belief
in the promises of salvation. She can’t help but do anything
but to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And do you notice
the context of her enjoyment? She’s with a fellow saint. She’s
with another believer. And don’t you just feel so full
of joy when you’ve been in church on Sunday, you’ve sat through
Sunday school, you’ve been bathed in the truth. Worship is a wonderful
event. We eat lunch with our saints.
We go home for a holy nap, right? And we come back in the evening
and we’re together again in God’s word. And don’t you just feel
joy that that day has not been wasted. You’ve not stood in a
customer service line. You’ve not been out into the
marketplace where it’s busy and noisy and difficult. You’ve been in the company of
saints. You’ve been in the presence of almighty God. His truth has
washed over you. You’ve been with people who are
aware that the Lord is work and they believe in the promises
of salvation. And together you’ve glorified and enjoy God. That’s
exactly what Mary and Elizabeth are doing together. Don’t you
see why Mary made haste to be in the presence of Elizabeth
and to share this good news that God was going to come and save
his people. And as you read through the Magnificat,
you see her list, you see her understanding. She knows who
she is, a lowly servant girl. She sees who God is, a great
saving redeemer. And she sees that God is saving
a people for himself. I want you to understand something,
dear brothers and sisters, the Christian life is to be experienced. The Christian life is to be lived
to the fullest. The Christian life is something
that day by day by day, we recognize the presence of God, the work
of God and the promises of God. And as we experience it, we live
with this reality in our minds and in our hearts. We have this
sense that there’s something greater than ourselves and that
God is at work in the world. And we are grateful that we get
to be a part of that through faith in Jesus. Friends, if you’re
Faith in Jesus, your Christianity is cold. If it’s dead, if it’s
really ho-hum and you just are checking the box. Let me encourage
you this day to ask God, the Holy Spirit, to come into your
life and make you keenly aware that he is in this world at work.
Make the scriptures, Holy Spirit pray, to come alive in your life
so that you have eyes that see and ears that hear and hearts
that perceive and hands that do the work of the kingdom. Friends,
we can check the box and come to church. We can check the box
and have our seat in Sunday school. We can check the box and stick
a little something in the offering plate. We can check the box and
keep our Bible on the kitchen counter. We can do a lot of religious
things yet not experience God. So let me tell you with all your
heart, it is my hope and prayer that you are aware of the presence
of God, not only in your life, but aware of the presence of
God in this church and aware of the presence of God at work
in this world that all seems dark and lost. You know, in this passage that
we’ve read today, there’s a beatitude. You know, a beatitude, blessed
are those who mourn, Blessed are the peacemakers. We know
the Beatitudes. There are other Beatitudes in the scriptures.
And there’s one here in verse 45. Blessed. Blessed is the one. Blessed is the one who believes,
Elizabeth says to Mary. Blessed is she who believed that
there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from
the Lord. What does that mean? Blessed,
happy. It’s not American happiness. It’s not health and wealth happiness.
It’s eternal happiness. That you are right with God,
that he has saved you and changed you. And you can be happy not
only in this life. But eternally so, and friends
that is offered to us in the gospel for those of us who believe,
for those of us who believe that we are sinners in need of grace,
those of us who believe that Jesus is the way of salvation,
that he can forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all our
unrighteousness. Blessed are those who believe. His mercy is for those who fear
him. And dear saints, we have two that fear God. Would it be
that we feared God like them? Pray with me. Our Lord and God,
we give you thanks that in the scriptures you uphold people
that do things that are exemplary, that show us how we ought to
live. And Lord, these two believed in you. These two had faith.
These two saw you at work, but it was not anything in them that
did this. It was by grace, through faith
and the power of the Holy Spirit. And we can. We can have that
as well. And we ask that you would give
us eyes that see, ears that hear, hearts that perceive, hands and
feet that are ready to be your servants in this world for the
good of our neighbor and for the glory of Christ, that his
name may be famous to the ends of the earth. Lord, let us fear
you and then receive your mercy. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.