Alright, if you'll open your Bibles, and if you're not there already from our reading, turn back to Luke 1. We'll be in Luke 1, beginning in verse 26. I'm just going to read a few verses to begin with, and we'll read more as we progress through the sermon. Let's begin in verse 26. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, if you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there will be no end. And Mary said to the angel, How will this be, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, Let it be to me according to your word, and the angel departed from her." The Bible is a big book, right? There is a storyline through the Bible though, beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation. The Bible begins really with a kingdom mandate, a demand for Adam. the first man to reign over this earth. God told the first man be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. You can find that in Genesis 128. Dominion there, it speaks of a reign. Adam reigned in a sense. He was intended, it was intended for him to reign as king over the earth really. but it was short-lived. God gave Adam a command as well, right? Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. You know the story. Satan deceived Eve, and she ate, and then she handed the fruit to Adam, and he ate. And with it came the fall of man. That was approximately 4,000 years prior to the text before us this morning. The man and his wife there violated God's commandment and thrusted the entire human race into sin, every single one of us. Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because of sin, and because all have sin. Nevertheless, despite that, God graciously promised redemption. Even before He clothed the man and his wife as the sovereign of the universe, stood in front of those two, and they stood completely naked, without answer, uncovered before him, having broken his commandment, unable to hide their guilt. Even before he clothed them, God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. See, God was not taken by surprise by the fall of man, right? By the fall of Adam. The promise of redemption was and is Plan A by our Creator God, and we see that to begin with in Genesis. So the hope of redemption was launched there in the garden by the offended party, mind you. Don't skip that. The offended party being God Himself. He launched this plan of redemption. And really the story of Scripture, the storyline of Scripture begins there for us. Several years after the fall and after the sin of Adam, a man by the name of Abraham was called out of a pagan land from his family to serve Yahweh. God promised that man Abraham in Genesis 22. He said, Your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. That same promise was reiterated to both Isaac and Jacob, Abraham's son and grandson. And before his death, Jacob blessed each of his sons and his two grandsons born of Joseph. To Judah, this is what Jacob said as he blessed him. He said, The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him. And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. We continue to see the storyline of redemption, the storyline of the kingdom unfolding and progressing through Scripture here. Moving forward many years then to the birth of Judah's great, great, great, great grandson. Somewhere along those greats. David. This promise continued. The redemption story continued. To David, God promised that this Redeemer would come as one of His offspring, right? And would reign on His throne forever. You can find that in 2 Samuel 7. Now the promised Redeemer did not come in the person of David, right? It also did not come in his son, or his grandson, or his great-grandson, and so on and so on. In fact, for many generations, that Redeemer did not come after David had passed. Instead, into captivity, Israel went. And then back out of captivity, Israel came. But by the time we reach the end of the Old Testament, that promise in Genesis 3.15, That proto-gospel, as it's often called, the remedy to our sin problem, it was still yet unfulfilled. It was a yet unfulfilled hope of mankind at the end of the Old Testament. And when the New Testament opens, God had been silent. There had been no word from Him given at all. for some 400 years. No prophet had been sent, no word of God had come for some 400 years. And that's where we find our text before us this morning. That is the setting in which we find our story. Brian and I are going to attempt to go through a two-part mini-series this morning on the birth of Jesus and the importance of that. Now don't be fooled when I say mini-series. We will attempt a two-part mini-series that's just going to be in the nature of it's only going to be two sermons. It's not going to be short necessarily. We will both have quite a bit we have to say today. So bear with us and stick with us. I believe you'll be blessed. The title of the sermon this morning, the first part of this is A Savior is coming. And in this text, in this sermon this morning, I pray that the birth of Jesus will be seen, the announcement to Mary will be seen, and that we learn of her wonderfully faithful response in this announcement. Beginning here in chapter 1, verse 26-27, again we read, "...in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary." So we see first thing here that an angel was sent to Mary. This angel by the name of Gabriel was sent to Mary in Nazareth. I want you to notice the description here of the city of Galilee named Nazareth. Most likely the region, Galilee, is mentioned here because Nazareth was little to nothing at this point. There was really not a lot there. It was nothing more probably than just a small village in the region of Galilee. If you think about this, while John's birth, John the Baptist's birth, who was mentioned right prior in our book here in Luke to the birth of Jesus, that announcement was anyways, while the birth of John was announced to a priest in the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus' birth was announced in a small rural village privately to a poor young virgin girl, right? Now Nazareth was a place of deep poverty. If we keep on building and looking into what actually took place here, it was a place of deep poverty. It was somewhat outside the mainstream of Israel life. And it seems as if it was scorned by a lot of Jews, especially strict Jews. Do you remember when Philip told Nathanael in John 1, verses 45 and 46? He said, speaking of the Messiah, we have found Him of whom Moses and the Law and all the Prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathanael responded to that and said to Him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? So you see the view of Nazareth at this point. Some have even suggested that the title Jesus of Nazareth carried dishonor. It was a title of dishonor meant to bring down the reputation of Jesus. One certainly would not have thought, right, that the Son of God would be raised in such a place, would be born in such a place. And I can't help but think about what we think about royalty today, right? We think about the Queen and we're enamored with royalty, the Queen and the monarch there and Great Britain. I mean, people are constantly watching TV and watching the next announcements and watching movies. Hallmark is constantly giving movies about a girl that doesn't know that she falls in love with a prince and doesn't know he's a prince and she becomes a queen or a princess. I've mentioned this before, but as the father of children, Lion King pops to mind, right? If you've seen that movie, you know at the beginning of Lion King when they announce the birth of Simba, the coming king, the soon-to-be king, the prince there to begin with. The whole kingdom of animals is out and it's just a big event and they raise him up as a young cub and just a big ordeal is made of that event, right? That's the idea we have of royalty and of a king and of a prince. But that's not what we see in the announcement and later in the birth of the king, right? In Philippians 2-7, we're told that Jesus emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. And we really see that when we look at the beginning here, when Jesus was born into such a poverty-stricken area to seemingly rather poor people of no importance to the world around them. Notice also here clearly, Gabriel was sent from God to Mary, right? His message then carried with it authority. Authority, as he came from God. We're told that Mary was a virgin. And if you know your Bible, it's impossible for your mind not to race straight back to Isaiah 7, verse 14, where we read, "...therefore the Lord Himself will give you a son, Speaking of the coming Messiah, "...Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Though Luke does not specifically reference the prophet Isaiah here, Matthew does, making that connection for us. Matthew says, "...All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet Isaiah. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel." Which means God with us. As we continue, we see that Mary was betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. Now, when we think of betrothal and we think of a marriage event, we often think of our common practice, right? Our ritual here, our society, and what that means, what that looks like here, and what we see today differs from what the Middle East at this point in history, how they handled marriages and betrothal. A betrothal really was similar to what we would term an engagement today, but it was much more official. At this point in a betrothal, Mary would have actually been referred to as Joseph's wife already. Although there had been no physical relationship, there had been no marriage ceremony, they were not together in the sense that they were not living together. They were very separate. It would probably have been a year or so later, after the betrothal, that the actual marriage would have taken place and the husband would have come to take his wife to the home that he had been preparing over that time. And again, to bring more context into some of the songs we sing or some of the things that we think about theologically, we think of the coming groom, the coming Christ, right, where the bride is waiting for the groom. That's not familiar in our society because the groom waits for the bride in our society, right? Middle Eastern culture. The bride waits for the groom. The groom goes away to prepare a home for his wife, for his bride, who he is betrothed to. And he builds that home. He gets prepared. And then he comes, and it's a big ceremony, a big celebration. He comes and he gets his wife. And then they go and they live together. And again, bringing that to a theological point that we know we're waiting for Christ, for the groom, for the church, right? He's building our home. He's preparing our home for us. And when He comes, then that marriage ceremony will take place and we will be with him forever. But that's what we see here. The betrothal had taken place with Mary and Joseph, but the marriage had not actually taken place as of yet. Now, it's probably shocking to know this in modern day American society, but betrothals often occurred for a woman as early as 12 years old in this culture. We're not told this about Mary. We don't know how old she is, but most Christian historians probably put her around 15 or 16, so a little bit older than that 12, obviously, but she's still a very young woman. Whatever her age, this is without a doubt a high calling given to her, right? I mean, considering her age, it was an exceptionally high calling. Now, we know that Joseph was a descendant of David. In fact, the genealogy of Jesus given to us in Matthew chapter 1 is that of Joseph's, and it traces back to David through David's son Solomon. In their day, though Joseph was not Jesus' biological father, he would have been Jesus' legal father, and that actually carried even more weight in Jewish society. There's another completely different genealogy given though here in Luke of Jesus, in Luke chapter 3, and that is that of Mary's genealogy. It's not Joseph's, it's Mary's. So we get both parents' genealogy, and that also shows us that Jesus was a descendant from David through Mary. Do you remember the promise that was made to David that I mentioned earlier in 2 Samuel 7? That promise was given to David, speaking of the coming Messiah. So the mention of David here in Luke and by Luke is not just filler, right? I mean, it's not just put in just to take up space. Luke is very intentional with this information here. It actually is key to the coming Messiah. And Luke really makes a lot of the Davidic descent of Jesus in the birth narrative. Here in verse 27 of chapter 1, and again in verse 32, it's mentioned, or the house of David is referred to in verse 69 of chapter 1. The city, the house, and the lineage of David are mentioned in chapter 2, verse 4. And the city of David is mentioned again in chapter 2, verse 11. Again, that's just very compressed here in the birth narrative that we get in the first two chapters. It is important. Jesus is without question the promised Son of David, right? The everlasting Messianic King. Luke wants to make sure that that is not questionable, that is laid out for us and that we see that. Then we read in verses 28-30, And let me say this, The church at Rome would have us to believe that there is somehow Mary being the bestower of grace. They label her as the bestower of grace. She can bestow grace. She is one that bestows grace, but that's not the case. Notice, she received grace, right? Unmerited favor from God here. The declaration that the Lord is with you refers not only to this time as well with Gabriel, but throughout the events that are promised to her, really the entire pregnancy here. We see the Lord through Gabriel assuring and comforting Mary, and we'll continue to see that. We're told still that she was greatly troubled upon hearing this from Gabriel. And that's understandable, right? An angel appears to you in the night and gives you this news that she was troubled and she was really still trying to work this out in her mind. She was confused to the point that we're told that she was trying to discern what sort of greeting this might be, exactly what Gabriel was trying to tell her and what he was greeting her and saying. She really pondered it, wondering exactly what God was going to do to her or with her. But Gabriel again calms her fears, once again tells her that she had found favor with God. That term, found favor with God, Daryl Bach writes, this favor is pronounced without any hint of a request. It is freely bestowed. In other words, Mary doesn't seem to have been praying to be the mother of the Messiah, the virgin mentioned there in Isaiah 7, verse 14. God is the actor here in the grace towards Mary. Again, all grace really, God is the actor of that, right? He is the bestower of grace, but it's no different for Mary. Mary was a sinner as well. She needed grace, and she will acknowledge that later. We'll cover that here before we finish this morning. As we continue in verse 31 we read, Now, whether Luke had Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14 specifically in mind here, we're not told. But there's no way for us not to make that connection, right? And we see that connection here. Gabriel is telling Mary two things, two specific things here. He says, first, as a virgin, you will conceive a child. And second, that child will be the long-awaited Messiah. Again, God promised way back in the Garden of Eden that He would send a Savior, right? That's where we started today. A Savior to defeat Satan, to defeat that serpent. A Savior who would be born of a virgin. As I said earlier, the words of God spoken to Satan after the fall there in Genesis 3, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring, her offspring, literally, her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Literally, the woman's seed would bruise the head of the serpent, right? According to the promise there in Genesis. But how can that be? Because biologically, women do not have a seed, right? That's the place of a man. Except in one case. this case here, when in fact a virgin did conceive. So the virgin birth and the narrative given is of great importance, right? I mean, we need to see that. Luke wants us to see that, and we need to see that. Earlier in the chapter, in verse 15, I had mentioned the narrative of John the Baptist, the announcement of his birth, but Zechariah His father was told that John would be great before the Lord. Before the Lord, right? Well, here in our text, Jesus is simply said to be great. He's not great before the Lord because He is the Lord, right? You see the difference, the contrast there. Now, most of us are familiar with John 1. Chapter 1, verse 1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Though Luke looks at the birth of Jesus more from a historical perspective, we have the theology behind this birth there in John's Gospel. John informs us that Jesus, the Word, is the eternal God, right? Later on, John continues in verse 14, and he says, The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. He, the Word, Jesus, God Himself, became flesh. That became is important. This can be said, He became. He became flesh because He already existed, right? In eternity past. He didn't come into existence there in the manger or in the womb of Mary. He became flesh. He was already in existence. John continues in v. 18, No one has ever seen God but the one and only Son who is Himself God. and is at the Father's side, has made Him known. Jesus is the fulfillment, then, of the Davidic covenant. He is the long-anticipated Messiah, and He is mighty God, everlasting Father, according to the prophecy there in Isaiah. Here in verse 34, back in our text, Mary said to the angel, How will this be? since I am a virgin." This was her response to Gabriel. How will this be since I am a virgin? As we read that, we probably think doubt first, right? She's doubting. How can this possibly happen? As in, I don't know that this can happen. But this is not doubt. We shouldn't take this as doubt. She's not asking for a son as Zechariah did. John's father again there did. She is, though, wondering how this can occur. I mean, she seems to have a simple understanding of biology here and understand that she is a virgin. How is this going to work? So it's not disbelief. This is just simply an inquiry into how this is going to happen, how it's going to occur. And she's basically saying here, OK, I believe you, but how is this going to happen since I'm a virgin and Joseph and I are yet still to be married? Mary seems here to consider that the promise of conception as being at least potentially immediate, right? It's going to come pretty quick. This announcement and this conception is going to happen pretty quick. And so again, this spurs her question. When or how will this happen? Because she didn't see this as happening in the future with her marriage to Joseph down the road. And we know that to be true. We know that didn't happen. We also have the benefit of hindsight, right? I mean, we have the benefit of the story already being told to us, but Mary didn't at this time. She's still in the process of having it told her in that moment. She's wondering, how is this going to take place? And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God." The creative God who made man from dust would have no problem creating a body for Jesus in the womb, right? To be clear now, He did not make Jesus, right? Jesus, as we just talked about, we just saw from Scripture, is eternal. He existed prior to this, but the body of Jesus was fashioned by God in the womb of Mary, and there was no trouble for Him to do that. Just as the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters there in Genesis in the creation story, so the Spirit of God was going to effectually conceive a child in Mary's womb. If we accept Genesis 1 as fact, this is easy to believe. God's power is going to overshadow her here. This could probably refer to the conception, but it could also refer to a special time of guardianship by God while Mary carried the Son of God in her womb. Just during the pregnancy, the Holy Spirit would perhaps overshadow her and be with her in a special way, giving encouragement and comfort along the way. And if that was the case, if that is actually what was meant here, that would have been greatly encouraging to Mary, especially as the pregnancy continued. We read here that He, her child, will be called holy. Holy meaning dedicated or consecrated to God, right? Now understand, God is holy in that He is other than. He is other than His creation. Likewise, Jesus, as God, is holy. He is unique, completely different than any other person to have ever been born. Now don't misunderstand, Jesus was 100% human, okay? But He was also 100% God. He was sinless. He was sinless not only in His actions. That's something that we can kind of wrap our mind around. We can never do that. We can never be that ourselves. Our actions are consistently and constantly at enmity with God, especially prior to our conversion. But we can kind of understand how you can control your actions in some sense. But Jesus was not only perfect in His actions, He was 100% sinless in His thoughts. and in His motives, and also in His birth, right? There was no sin nature imparted on Him despite Him being 100% human. And all of that is just hard for us to fathom as we sit here today, especially knowing our own tendencies. But just because we can't fathom it doesn't mean it's not true, right? We know it to be true. He's the perfect Son of God. He is the Son of God, as we are told here. As much as anything what Luke is saying here, this probably refers to Jesus not being the physical Son of Joseph, right? He wasn't the Son of Joseph, the Son of Man, He is the Son of God. That said, again, the Son, the Son mentioned here has always been the Son, right? Eternally. God has always been a Trinity. Again, and I don't want to belabor this point, but I think it is important, Jesus did not come into existence in the womb of Mary or in the manger. He is eternally existent. John's prologue there that I read, I went through a little bit, is clear on that. And God has never once, even for a second, ceased to be our triune God. an eternity past or an eternity future. And if there is a suggestion of that, I would tell you that that is blasphemy, okay? We continue on in verse 36, Now, Mary didn't ask for a son, right? I mentioned that earlier. She didn't ask for a son, but she got one anyways. Her sign was, her cousin Elizabeth is pregnant. That's a miracle. That was a sign because Elizabeth was in her old age and she was barren, as we just read. This should have been impossible for Elizabeth to be pregnant, but yet she was pregnant. Gabriel was telling Mary that she could know that these things would come true because of what God had already miraculously done for Zechariah and Elizabeth through the birth of John, or through the pregnancy and its coming birth of John. And that's why he says, for nothing will be impossible with God. This was true of Elizabeth conceiving even though she was old and barren, and this was true of Mary conceiving even though she was a virgin, right? John Ostersee is quoted as saying, The laws of nature are not chains which the divine legislator has laid upon himself. They are threads which he holds in his hand and which he shortens or lengthens at his will. And I say amen to that. This is why nothing will be impossible with God, right? Now, Mary says, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, Let it be to me according to your word." And then the angel departed from her there in verse 38. That is, really, if you think about it. If you think about her situation, you think about what she's just received. Again, we're reading this. Some 2,000 years post this happening, this is a well-known, well-often-told story. We're familiar with what took place. We get it after the fact. But she is receiving this in the moment. This is happening to her just new. This is not something that she would have had any idea of before this moment. And her response was, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. It's probably, that response is probably more amazing than we really consider often, especially for such a young woman. First, she calls herself the servant of the Lord, right? Servant in the Greek is the word doulos, which isn't rendered literally in most English Bibles. Most often we see that as servant or bondservant, but we know that to be the actual rendering of that to be slave, right? She's saying, I am the slave. of Yahweh. I am the slave of the Lord." She is casting herself at the feet of God here, declaring herself to be His slave, and God Himself to be her master. She is then, as His slave, resigned to do His will, right? Whatever that may be for her. Let it be to me according to Your word, is what she says. Again, think on this. Do you realize the difficulty that this would bring on her? Nobody was going to believe that she was supernaturally impregnated by the Holy Spirit. I mean, would you? Would I? No. I mean, that would seem like some crazy, far-fetched story, right? Especially this young, poor woman from Nazareth, right? And though Luke does not inform us of this, Matthew tells us that Joseph, after finding out she was pregnant, he resolved to divorce her quietly. It took a visit from the angel of the Lord in a dream to change his mind, to keep him from doing that. Without a doubt, people talked about her. I mean, we can't get past that. People talked about her. And they talked about her being unfaithful to Joseph during their betrothal. The Jews at least hint of that, that they believed that Jesus was born of sexual immorality in John 8, verse 41. Unlike themselves, of course, they saw themselves as better and separate, not like Jesus who was born there in sexual immorality. But Mary suffered this reproach, no doubt, probably for the rest of her life to some form, or in some form. She was okay with that, right? I mean, she begins by saying, whatever your will is, according to your word, Lord. There was no reservation, it seems, from her whatsoever. She just accepts God's word. And she's fine, and she's resolved to do the word of the Lord. Gabriel's mission then is complete, and he leaves. We'll skip on down for a couple of verses. Let's begin reading in verse 46 and we'll see the song or praise of Mary. 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 in the thoughts of their hearts. 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 for about three months and returned to her home." She gets this vision. She gets this visit from Gabriel. She learns of the impending conception and birth of the coming Messiah, Jesus. And then in verses 39-45, Mary goes and visits her cousin Elizabeth. that angelic message that was given to her to confirm the birth of the Messiah, also through Elizabeth and the birth of John. She goes and she visits Elizabeth and sees this as taking place. And I'm not going to go through that text as we've not read that and that's not really the purpose of this morning. We're focusing more on Mary's response here in this message. But I do want to point out one thing before we go to Mary's response. See Elizabeth's faithful response here to Mary's visit. So Mary comes to her and she's miraculously with child, right? Well, Mary responds to her in verse 43, or Elizabeth responds to Mary in this announcement in verse 43, and she says, You see the humility of Elizabeth here as she hears the announcement, the birth of the coming Messiah. She's not enamored with her own miraculous birth. She's enamored with the coming Savior, right? With the visit of Mary and what that represents. It's really amazing, really. It's great to see Elizabeth's response there. But then Mary responds, and she utters some of the most beautiful and faithful words in all of Scripture here in her response. Notice in verse 46, she says, My soul magnifies the Lord. This is a song of praise from Mary. And it's often called, and you probably have it in your Bibles, called this the Magnificent. It's from the Latin word, the underlying word of magnifies, that's where we get that word. We see a worshipful spirit here of Mary, right? I mean, we see just a wonderful response, extremely high view of God here from Mary. And we will see that throughout the entire section, the entire response of Mary. And here's a significant truth for us to think on this morning. As we see the high view that Mary had for Savior and of God, the higher your view of God, the grander your worship is of God, right? I'll go so far as to say that if we don't have a high view of God, we will not be able to worship Him, especially properly, right? At least not the sovereign God of the universe in the way that He is supposed to be worshipped and demands worship. One thing you will notice throughout this song is that Mary, she was really a learned young woman. She was, again, a very young woman, but she knew her Bible the way we put it today. She knew God's Word. And you see that throughout her entire response. She's consistently referencing Scripture as she goes through her response. And I want to impress upon our young kids this morning the importance of that, okay? Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near, of which you shall say, I have no pleasure in them. It is important to know God and His Word even as a young child, okay? And that is something we need to impress upon our children, and our children need to have constantly in their lives. Mary seems to have done this, right? She seems to have known God's Word, and that had been impressed upon her. And what does Mary's spirit rejoice in here? Grace, right? Grace. The fact that God had saved her soul. She was a sinner by her own admission here. So again, I want to point back to that blasphemous doctrine of the Roman Catholic idea that she somehow had been free from original sin because of this immaculate conception. That is not true. If it was, Mary didn't know it, right? I mean, you can see in the response here. In fact, if she was free of original sin, she blew it right here. Because according to her, her own words, she needed Jesus just like the rest of us. And look what God had done for her. He has looked on the humble estate of His servant, His slave. Mary is merely, again, the recipient of God's grace. And that's why it's called grace, right? She also though, she was blessed, not the blesser. It's from her own words, her own response. God gave her this honor despite her social condition, despite her being a poor young girl from a poor little town. This was still bestowed upon her, right? This honor. It's really odd for God, again, to choose this poor girl to bring the Messiah into the world. And again, that's not what we would expect, but that is often how God works in His Word, in ways in which humans just would not expect. 1 Corinthians 1, verses 27-29 reads, But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. We see why God does things that we wouldn't do or we don't think to do or in ways in which we You know, don't believe that what should happen. God does things in His way and in His will. In verses 48 and 49 we read, It seems here that Mary actually anticipates being remembered in God's Word in this birth, in this action that had been blessed and she'd been honored with. She says God is mighty and certainly He has done great things. I mean, He has caused a virgin to conceive, right? But even greater, He has given the world the greatest gift that has ever been given. The Savior of the world. Mary's words are just oozing here with hints of Scripture. And she says, Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You have done great things, O God. Who is like You? You can see that in Psalm 71.19. It's very similar to what Mary has said. For you are great and do wondrous things. You are God alone." In Psalm 86.10, another scripture very similar to what Mary has said. I could continue on with various different scriptures, but Mary again is just continually quoting scripture or referencing scripture in her response here. She says, God's name is holy. In Psalm 119, we read, holy and awesome is His name, right? The word awesome is sometimes translated as reverence, akin to revered. That's a term that I'm just not crazy about being used of a pastor, a reverend, because we are all sinners saved by grace, right? Everybody standing up here as a pastor is a sinner saved by grace. It's His name who is holy, right? It is His name that is awesome. My name is just Jacob. I like my name. I'm thankful for it, but it's neither holy nor awesome, right? In fact, I think it can be translated supplanter in the Hebrew. It's neither holy nor awesome, right? But Mary knew a lot about God's character here, as we can see. She says He is holy. He is other than His creation. He is separate from His creation. And of course, He is Creator God. And His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation. Now, the first part of her song, it dealt with God and His holiness. This section considers His mercy. Many believe that Mary quotes Psalm 103, 17 here, but the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him. They're very similar, right? And at such a young age, it's just, again, impressive to see the knowledge of Mary and her knowledge of Scripture. It's interesting that she mentions the fear of God here. That is such a foreign concept to us these days, is it not? I mean, you do not see many people worried about the fear or having the fear of God. There's not much to being scared of God today, but let me say this. This fear of the Lord is not really being scared of Him, right? It's more of a reverential fear, respect for Him. And again, we still don't see that fear or being scared by our society around us today. Yet both Psalm 111.10 and Proverbs 9.10 say this, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, right? I mean, Proverbs 1.7 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So the beginning of knowledge and wisdom is the fear of the Lord. I would think the fear of God is important. And so it seems that Mary both had wisdom and knowledge here. She continues, "...He has shown strength with His arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 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." She's speaking here of what Jesus will ultimately accomplish. Don't get too caught up in the past tense that she uses here. If you think of Romans 8, verse 30, it speaks of our glorification in past tense as though it has occurred already even though it has not yet occurred. The fact that God has fulfilled His promise in giving the Messiah, it gives assurance to her that the fact that He will do what He said He will do, right? It's as if it's already done even though it has not yet quite been done. She says that God has scattered the proud. And this is the result of being prideful, right? These are the results of pride. The truth of God's Word should make people anything but proud, right? It should humble us. The fact that God has saved us in spite of ourselves, it should humble us, not make us prideful and full of arrogance. But how many people do we know, including ourselves, I mean, we can point our fingers right back to ourselves, who would have taken this event, taken what happened to Mary as something great about us, right? I mean, we would have built some type of statue for ourselves almost. Out of all the people in the world, we think, out of all the people in the world, God chose me, right? I mean, He chose me to birth the Savior. There must be something great about me, right? I mean, for Him to have bestowed this and done this and chosen me, But that's not Mary's response because she is one of humility here, right? And God scatters the proud, that's what she says. Notice what the problem for the proud is. It's the thoughts in their heart. And that is the seat of affection, right? Your heart is where evil truly arises. Jesus said in Mark 7, from within, out of the heart of man comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these things, all these evil things come from within and they defile a person. That's where pride comes from, right? The heart. The thoughts in their heart. So the rulers here mentioned, that is the mighty on the thrones. These refer to political leaders. The Greek word translated mighty here is denusta. Think of dynasty, it's where we get that word from. These are political rulers. And look, this is a predominantly Jewish hymn, right? This is what Mary's mind, she's thinking in Jewish terms. Understand Mary is still living under that old covenant world, in an old covenant time, at the time when the Romans were oppressing God's chosen earthly people grievously. And Mary, as she receives news of the Messiah, and as she's given praise about the Messiah, she obviously sees the Messiah as their deliverer, right? The deliverer from oppression. And there are many Old Testament promises that relate to that. So Mary is essentially saying, finally, after all of this time, God is going to deliver His people from oppression through the long-awaited Messiah. Now obviously, it didn't happen at this time, at that time, in the sense in which the political terms We should not miss that this was the expectation that Mary had based on Old Testament promises concerning the Messiah. Those promises did not go away with the death of Jesus, okay? They are still yet to come. She offers yet another contrast between the rich and the poor here or the hungry. Look, we struggle with this idea of poor and rich and what that means because of the society that we're used to. We struggle with being poor or with the idea of being poor. But Jesus said this in Luke 19, "...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." Right? Simply put, the richer the person, the more likely they are to trust in their things, to trust in themselves instead of trusting God. Now again, there's no sin in being rich, but it is common and it is often likely those that have many material things depend and love those material things more than they do the things of God. And again, we don't like to think that way, but most everybody in America today is considerably rich compared to people across the world and certainly people in the history of the world. And that could be a telltale sign of why we have such a spiritual famine here in America today. Mary continues, "...he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, and he has spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever." Mary has looked at God's holiness in that first section, and then at God's mercy in the second section. Now her attention turns to God being a covenant-keeping God. Mary understood that God had made promises to Israel in the Old Testament, right? Certainly, the greatest of those promises was the coming Messiah. Understand, God is merciful to all mankind in general, including the Gentiles, including us, but to Israel specifically. The promises that He had spoken to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and to David, which we referenced to begin with in the sermon, Mary still expected them to be fulfilled. And we should too. God is always faithful to His Word. We need to see that. And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home. So she finishes this great song of praise. And then we're told that she remained there with Elizabeth for three months, or about three months, and then she returned on home. Elizabeth was in her sixth month of pregnancy when Mary traveled there. And this puts, obviously, her about nine months, which would have been about the time of the birth of John. We don't know for sure if she actually stayed for the birth or not, but we know that she stayed there to about that time. It was time for Mary to get home, though, and really just kind of move on and be prepared for the birth of the Savior. At this point, she wasn't going to be able to hide her pregnancy any longer, right? I mean, she was going to start showing, people were going to start knowing it was going to come out. We won't cover the rest of this chapter. Again, Mary's response was our focus this morning in the first sermon. But, like Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, His father, Zechariah, also did not focus on his son, John. We can see that later on in this chapter. In verses 76-79 it says, And you, child, speaking of John, will be called the prophet of the Most High. For you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people and the forgiveness of their sins. because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, and give light to those who sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." We see Zechariah's faith there, much like his wife's, and it was firmly rooted in Jesus, the coming Messiah, right? It wasn't rooted in John. It wasn't rooted in their miracle. It was rooted in the miracle, Jesus. And then here we have the pre-birth narrative ending, at least in Luke's gospel. There's normally a good amount of application, or there's an attempted application at the end of a sermon, but I'm going to save that for Brian to give us all at the end of his. We've spent enough time here this morning, but I have carried you to the edge, so to speak, and we're waiting for that big news still to come, and Brian's going to deliver that here in our next sermon, God willing. Stand with me.