Please open your copy of God's Word with me to the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke, and to chapter one, verse 39. If you're using the Pew Bible, the book of Luke can be found on page 1016. Page 1016. I'm going to begin reading, as I said, in verse 39, and read out the rest of chapter one. Luke chapter one, verses 39 to 80. This is the word of God. In those days, Mary arose and went with haste to the hill country, to a town in Judah. And 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 leapt 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 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 about three months and returned to her home. Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they would have called him Zechariah after his father. But his mother answered, No, he shall be called John. And they said to her, none of your relatives is called by this name. And they made signs to his father inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, His name is John. And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened. and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea. And all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, what then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him. And his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his prophets from of old. that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways and 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 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. And the child grew and became strong in spirit, And he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord endures forever. Heavenly Father, as we come to the preaching of your word, would you lead us to the things in today's text that you would especially have us to focus upon? Would you lead us supremely to Jesus Christ? And in all these things, Lord, would you get yourself glory through the preaching of your word? We pray these things in the name of Jesus, amen. Well, often when starting a book or a movie, you are presented with various characters living out their own separate storylines. And you know they're all going to eventually intersect, but you don't yet know how. So far in Luke, we've had the Zechariah and Elizabeth storyline of their miracle child granted after that lifetime of childlessness. That's John the Baptist. And we've had the Mary storyline, the miraculous incarnation of Jesus Christ, that very Son of God, a virgin conception, a miracle of the highest order. But it was only at the end of last week's reading that we found out the way they intersect. Not only is John the forerunner of Jesus, we found out last week in verse 36 that Mary and Elizabeth are relatives. Most believe that they were likely cousins. In our first text for today, or the first portion that I read, that little narrative portion, our story moves out of the hill country of, out into the hill country of Judah, and the two miracle mothers share together a scene. It's a very touching scene. We even have one miracle baby leaping in the womb over the presence of the other. We're then treated to Mary's song, or the Magnificant as it's known, a beautiful hymn of praise that really rivals any of the most beautiful psalms of scripture. Then we went back to narrative. In verse 57, Elizabeth gives birth. We're told Mary had been there for about three months, so she was likely there if you do the math, and there's great joy, and we have this naming controversy we just read. results in Zechariah being faithful to what the Lord had communicated to him through the angel Gabriel, that his name would be John, and the miraculous returning of his speech, and then he erupts in that glorious song of his own. Now, each of those two songs I just mentioned and that I just read in this portion of Scripture, Mary's and Zechariah's, really deserve their own sermon, and we're going to give that to them. What we're doing today, that'll be in weeks to come, what we will do today is I actually wanna focus on both the narrative portions in the passage I've read. Verses 39 and 45, the Mary and Elizabeth scene with the leaping in the womb, and then also verses 57 to 66, the birth and the naming of John the Baptist and the loosening of Zechariah's tongue. And what I wanna do is I wanna draw out from these narrative portions a few things that we might be tempted to often overlook. Now, as we all know, Christmas season has not begun yet. Christmas season will begin on Friday. The other day, I love Christmas season, full disclosure. I love Christmas movies. And the other day I was trying to think, at this point in life, how many times have I seen some of these classic Christian, well, some of them are, these classic Christmas movies, those ones that you watch every year. There are some of those that I'm sure I've seen 25. 30 times when you start really thinking about it. I could probably quote to you almost every line of It's a Wonderful Life, or White Christmas, or the greatest Christmas movie of all time, Muppet Christmas Carol. I could probably quote most of these movies by heart. But I don't really watch them that way, not only because that would annoy my family, but because the way that I watch them now is actually to watch them in a deeper way, and to try to notice something new every time I see it. Something new in the background, some minor character, even something from the sets, the little details you might miss on your 30 or so first viewings. Well, I wanna do something like that in these two little narratives. We do read them, but often it's sort of on the way to the two songs. And yes, this is all on the way to the birth of Christ and setting up John the Baptist as the last of the great prophets, the forerunner, the immediate forerunner of the Messiah. But what I wanna do in this message is just take a Sunday to slow down and notice a few background things. even make maybe a few connections and applications that if we were trying to do this all in one message, it wouldn't necessarily make the cut, even just for time, but they're there. and they're there for us to see if we take in the full richness of the scene. So what we're going to do is draw out five Christian portraits from these narratives. Portrait comes from Old French. It's a form of the word portray. It just means to set forth a picture of something or someone. So in our passage, we're going to see five little pictures of some part of the Christian life. five Christian portraits. They are a portrait of fellowship, a portrait of worship, a portrait of faith, a portrait of repentance, and a portrait of meditation. We begin then with a portrait of fellowship. Back to the beginning of our reading, in verses 39 to 40, we read that, in those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. Why did Mary arise and go with haste, haste it says, to Elizabeth? What gave her such urgency? Well, likely she was eagerly desiring to be with the one person in all the world that she could really confide with in this moment. We know Joseph, at least, would have a very understandably difficult time accepting Mary's explanation of her miraculous virgin conception. Surely, he would not have been the only one. Just imagine how lonely and isolating Mary's situation would have been. To whom should she turn? Well, to whom else but Elizabeth. Elizabeth, the angel had told her, she's part of all this too. In fact, her miraculous pregnancy is even a sign and a token of your own. And so in those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. Just picture it. Elizabeth, this old woman, she's been married a very long time, but she's beyond the years of natural conception, and yet she's many months pregnant. Married, betrothed, but not yet married. We don't know exactly how young she was, but the best cultural estimates say she was certainly a teen, perhaps a younger teen at that. This would have been a three to four day journey, not one undertaken lightly, bringing together two women in very different stages of life. Yet, oh, what refreshing comfort would have flooded Mary's heart when Elizabeth greeted her the way she did. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. She even calls her the mother of my Lord. Elizabeth knows what's going on. Filled with the Holy Spirit, these are things revealed to her. Arkent Hughes writes, there was a strong human joy in the meeting of these two expectant mothers. One in the flower of youth, the others bloom long gone. These two were to become innocent co-conspirators, soul sisters in the divine plot to save the lost. They would share their hearts as few humans ever have. And so we have a bond here, a fellowship truly unique in all history, the miracle mothers of John and Jesus together. And yet what is the center of their fellowship? What is it that brought them together? What is it they truly and most deeply have in common that so overcomes age gaps and so spans distance and is so sweet and comforting? Verse 56 again tells us that Mary remained there with Elizabeth for three months. It's Christ. The incarnation of Christ is what drives Mary with haste to Elizabeth. The presence of Christ is what prompts the joyful, happy greeting from Elizabeth. This isn't just Mary. This is the mother of my Lord. Blessed is the fruit of her womb. And for that reason, because it is motivated and animated and centered upon Christ, The fellowship of Mary and Elizabeth is a little portrait of our own. We too share a bond in Christ. As it did for them, that bond overcomes whatever else may divide, it overcomes age gaps and distance and any other human point of demarcation. And is there not likewise for us a refreshing comfort in being with the people of God? Do you arise and make haste to Christian fellowship? I'm not talking about oversleeping on a Sunday and then rushing out the door and maybe getting a speeding ticket on the way to church. Although ask me sometime and I'll tell you about the time I got pulled over speeding on the way to a funeral I was supposed to be conducting. That's a true story. What I am talking about is a genuine eagerness, an eagerness to be with the people of God. Yes, we live on mission in the world. No, we are not spiritual separatists hiding in our little bunker. But aren't you eager for the fellowship? The fellowship of the saints. The unity that obliterates all lesser unions. The unity we share because we have common spiritual union with Jesus Christ. And so we are mysteriously united not only to him, but to one another. I'm talking about the joy of greeting your spiritual family. Didn't we learn from Jesus himself last week? There is a spiritual bond all believers have with him that is stronger than bonds even of flesh and blood, closer even than the relationship of Mary, his blessed earthly mother on those terms. And if we are all family with Christ, here is my mother and my brothers and my sisters. Are we not then all family with one another? I'm talking about peace, like a ship pulling into the harbor after days of stormy seas, because here there's peace. Here in the house of God, in the midst of the assembly, I get to stand with my brothers and sisters, my soul brothers and soul sisters, to use Hugh's terms. And when God's truth is proclaimed, we all together say amen. I'm not alone. We say it together. Christ's supper is shared together. We together proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. We stand together and sing the songs of Zion. This world is not our home, but our home is a place we will be together with him and with one another forever and ever. Is there not still a refreshing comfort to the fellowship of the saints? We're not alone. We remind one another our God is still true. There are many who have not and will not bow the knee to the idols of earth. Surely, this passage provides us with a little portrait of what fellowship, Christian fellowship, really can be when Christ is what we really have in common. Secondly, in our readings for today, we have a portrait of worship. A portrait of worship, worship is a massive topic. There's plenty that can and must be said about it. What has God ordained for our worship? What are the proper biblical forms of worship? How do we think through what we do in a worship service? These are things that are critical for a Christian to understand because what is more fundamental to our Christianity than we worship God? And yet at the same time, there's a beautiful simplicity to worship. according to whatever form, in whatever venue, worship simply is the heart's right response to God, expressed through the forms He's given us, yes. but an expression of the heart. Didn't Jesus say, these people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. He doesn't want that. He wants us to use our lips and our bodies and our whole selves to rightly worship him, but as an honest and true expression of the heart. When we draw near to Christ, When we contemplate His person, as we rejoice over His work, as we commune with Him through the means He's given, the heart is to respond with gratitude, adoration, to give Him the honor that is His and His alone. That is worship, and there is a beautiful portrait of it in our text, simple but profound. But it's not from Elizabeth. It's not even from Mary. Rather, it is the unborn baby John who provides the text's beautiful portrait of worship. Because, verse 41, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And again, verse 44, behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, she said, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. What's going on here is certainly all empowered and enriched by a special presence of the Holy Spirit. The text emphasizes that. It is not teaching just a general spontaneous worship eruption doctrine of unborn babies. That's not the point. But you know what? This one did. Lenski writes, the unborn forerunner felt his master's presence. Hughes, likewise, writes, there was a prophet in Elizabeth's womb, and this was his first prophecy. The portrait for us is simple, the picture that it's drawing and the application clear. Christian, in proximity to Christ, does your heart leap for joy? Not physical proximity, Christ is in heaven. He is seated at the right hand of the Father. But we do have a real spiritual proximity to Christ. That's what we're doing in a worship service like this. We are drawing near to Christ in a special way, a spiritual way. He is spiritually with us in these moments, no less than if you were physically standing in our midst. He is a person who is truly divine, as well as truly human, and by the attribute of divine omnipresence, Jesus is with us. That's something of what Peter was getting at in 1 Peter 1.8. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. So even as we worship today, even as Christ is preached from his word, do you draw near to him? Do you rejoice to draw near to him? Though you do not now see him, do you love him? And does your heart, like the little infant heart of unborn John in this portrait of worship, Does it leap for joy at the presence of your Lord? A little portrait of worship, very relevant for we who worship him today. But we cannot pass it by without making another observation, and that is to emphasize again this leaping, this joy is being expressed by one yet unborn. There's a lot of talk today about when the developing baby has a heartbeat, when it can feel pain, how many weeks, and what does that mean for us, and how we think about that little one, how we value them, how we protect them. Hughes writes of John the Baptist in this passage. John was then about nine inches long. weighed about one and a half pounds. He looked like a perfect miniature newborn. His skin was translucent. He had fingerprints and toe prints. Sometimes he opened his eyes for brief periods and gazed into the liquid darkness of the womb. As a fetus of six months, John was an emotional being. He had the capacity to be filled with the Spirit. He was so overcome that he leapt for joy. And what was his joy over? The in utero Jesus Christ. Hughes continues, Mary had already conceived. She was three or four days pregnant. Jesus was a zygote, and when Jesus, a zygote in the womb of his mother, entered the room, John the Baptist, a six-month-old fetus in Elizabeth's womb, leapt for joy, and Elizabeth addressed Mary in the present tense, mother of my Lord. Mary was a mother. as are all women at the moment of conception. This is a passage that celebrates life in the womb and leaves no doubt as to God's view of such life. It is real, it is precious, it bears the image of God. Yes, it's a portrait of worship. But that worship is the act of a person worshiping another person. One a divine person, yes, but a divine person who has taken on a true human nature. One six months old, one three or four days old, but both people treated as people and celebrated. in the text of scripture. Christian, mark it down as a biblical, non-negotiable life begins at conception and is worthy of celebration. Celebration and protection by any who would share the heart of our God for the unborn. Now hear me. There is forgiveness for those who have not protected that life. Jesus laid down his life to secure that forgiveness as surely as any and every sin you may be forgiven by in him. If that is you, look to the cross of Jesus Christ and know he forgives you in Christ. Look to the cross and the redeeming love of the gospel and know the Father's grace. But understand, that is such a glorious and gracious truth, precisely because not valuing and protecting that life is indeed a great sin. May all God's people have absolute clarity and the courage of conviction on that. Third, we are treated in this text to a portrait of faith. A portrait of faith. Some portraits are larger and more detailed than others. The royals often commission life-size or even larger-than-life portraits to hang in their palaces. But many a soldier has treasured a smaller portrait. Many a soldier's gone into war with maybe just a small locket and a portrait of his love there inside. That smaller portrait is no less, perhaps even far more greatly treasured than the larger. In verse 45, Elizabeth commends Mary with a small, locket-sized explanation of faith, a little portrait of faith. Verse 45, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Blessed, Elizabeth says, same word Christ would use later in the Beatitudes. It's the closest analog really to the Old Testament concept of shalom, that harmonious peace of those whose people's God is the Lord, the grace of the hope of knowing you are his forever, blessed. And in our little locket-sized portrait, it says, verse 45, blessed is she who believed, believed actually being the common biblical word for faith. And so, We have this little portrait of saving faith. Isn't really as simple as that in so many ways. I believe all spoken by the Lord. Not just intellectually. James tells us even the demons can pull that trick. Not just believing the brute facts, but real faith. The personal trust in Christ. The Christ personally who is believed. believing him at his word, trusting in every promise that scripture makes to you, saying, I believe him, that he is God in the flesh, come to seek and save the lost. I believe him when he promises the forgiveness of all my sins. I believe when he promises the risen Christ will return for me and all his people. I believe him when he promises life eternal with him in glory. God has spoken and I believe this is faith. Every word, I believe it, I rest in it personally as my only hope, this is my only savior, this is my only Lord, this is the simple essence of faith. It believes, it receives, it rests in the promises of God, in Christ personally, as he is offered in the gospel, which is given to us in the very word of God. Martin Luther had a happy illustration of faith he used from time to time. And that is that faith is like an ear. And so if you would, think for me a moment about your ears. You might even want to take a look at the ears of the person in front of you as kind of a visual aid. And you people in the front row are out of luck. If you want to make it awkward, you can just turn around and look at the ears of the people right behind you. Now you may not like your ears. Maybe you're very proud of your ears. But my question is this, as we think about our ears, what do you really do with your ears? You don't go about picking things up with them. Some people can kind of wiggle them a little bit, but you can't like flap them in a pool and make yourself swim faster, let alone fly. The ear in many ways is the most useless part of the body, save for one key thing it does do that sets it apart as wonderfully useful, and that is this, an ear can hear. I don't know, I got nothing. An ear can hear. You can hear the sirens on a Sunday afternoon. But what's going on in that moment? Thanks, guys, for the illustration. What's going on? The ear is purely receptive. The only real function of the ear is to receive things from outside of themselves, to take something in rather than put anything out. It's like that with our faith. Faith is as purely receptive, Luther used this illustration to say, as the ear. Faith is not the works we do, the goodness we put out there, as it were. There's a doctrine of that, but not in saving faith. Because that's not what saves us. What saves us is what is taken in by faith and that is Christ himself and the salvation we receive in receiving him, the instrument, the conduit, the channel through which Christ is received in saving power is faith and faith alone. So Luther called faith nothing else than the ear of the soul. As sound waves enter through the ear and we hear, so too Christ enters through the means of faith and we are saved. But it's Christ who's doing the saving. Remember our soldiers locket. Think of the soldier, maybe under fire in the field of battle. Think of this as an analogy for the Christian life. You're living the Christian life, and it is like a war sometimes, and there are bullets flying over your head, spiritual bullets, bullets of doubt, bullets of temptation, bullets of the lies that whisper to you, maybe something like, you are no child of God, but then, You crack open the locket of the small, simple portrait of faith in verse 45, and you read, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Christian, the Lord has spoken to you the wonders of the gospel. the glories of Christ, the absolute efficacy of His work to save you from all your sins forever and ever. That is where you must look in your most desperate moments. Look to the promises of God. All the things spoken by the Lord will be fulfilled. Look to the gospel. Look to Jesus Christ. Robert Murray McShane wrote, for every look at yourself, take 10 looks at Christ. There is more grace in him than there is sin or weakness in you. That is where the simple, small portrait of faith in Luke 145 leads our hearts to rest when it says, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. So too, Christian, are all who still believe. Blessed. Well, we've seen a portrait of fellowship. We've seen a portrait of worship. We've seen a portrait of faith. We move now to the second narrative portion, the birth of John, for the final two portraits, which are fourth, a portrait of repentance, and fifth, a portrait of meditation. Fourth, then, a portrait of repentance. Let's not forget about Zechariah. He could be easy to forget because he's been very quiet, but with the angelically imposed muteness, But in this next section, all is resolved. Gabriel had told him he would be mute until all these things took place. That's how he arrives into this text. But who gets to define when that is? When all these things take place that Gabriel had said. Was it when Elizabeth conceived? Was it John's birth? Why not later? Why not when John arrived on the scene in that spirit of Elijah, maybe 30 years from now, to prepare the way for the Lord? Well, apparently it was at his naming. Or rather, Zechariah's agreeing with his naming, which was actually eight days after he was born. Verses 59 to 64 again. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, No, he shall be called John. And they said to her, none of your relatives is called by this name. And they made signs to his father. Now, they made signs to his father. There may be a translation thing here going on where it would be better rendered. They kind of turned to or nodded to the father and said, what do you say? Because if they're literally making signs to him, I don't think they understand how muteness works. He's not deaf. It's kind of like the person when someone doesn't speak your language thinking, oh, just talk louder. I don't understand it louder, right? Not totally sure what's going on there. But they turn to the father, through whatever means, they inquire of what he wanted to be called. And he asks them for a writing tablet and wrote, his name is John. And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God, we'll come in time to the glorious song that he sings. But here's the thing. There's really no sense in the text, Zechariah knew the timeline of any of this. There's no sense he was trying to activate his own voice in this moment. Rather, what we have is just a man who had expressed sinful doubts, walking faithfully now before his God. And in all of this, he's another wonderful portrait of us, this time a portrait of repentance. This is a man under God's discipline. and repentance is the fruit God's discipline bears. And so may all those under God's discipline walk as Zechariah walked. The timing is the Lord's. Of what he might give back to me or restore or choose not to, it is mine to walk faithfully. Now God's discipline might be as simple as that spirit-wrought paying of conscience over a harsh word spoken in anger. It might be as catastrophic as the hardest day of your life when some hidden sin comes to light and the consequences are costly to the extreme, but the difference is one of degree, not of kind. In both cases, the Lord is loving his child by not leaving them in the clutch of sin. The classic passage is Hebrews 12, three to 11, won't read the whole passage, but that's the passage where we read words such as, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves. And for the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Again, that's Hebrews 12, 3 to 11. And again. What we learn there is that repentance is the fruit God's discipline bears in his children. Repentance is genuine sorrow over sin and active turning away from it. And what a grace that is when the Lord works that out in our life, how very good it is to be taught to hate our sin, which is an only kill, break, and destroy, and to love the ways of God in which there is blessing. This is God leading us away from the natural man by the supernatural grace of the Spirit at work in us. It is, as Hebrews teaches in that passage, a token of his fatherly love. It is an evangelical grace, only possible when beholding the mercies of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of Zechariah in our text, Bishop Ryle writes, we need not doubt that the past nine months had been a most profitable time to the soul of Zechariah. He had learned probably more about his own heart and about God than he ever knew before. And so may we as well, when we have sinned, may we learn to let go of excuses, of hiding, of self-preservation, and simply endeavor to walk in faith that the Lord loved us too much to leave us in our sin and loves us still. This is what we see in Zechariah's little portrait of repentance. And in our final portrait for this morning, we turn lastly to a portrait of meditation. A portrait of meditation. And I focus in on the reaction of the people. who beheld these wonders, there at the end of that narrative portion in verses 65 to 66, but actually to one little statement in there. Let me read verses 65 and 66. And fear came on all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, what then will this child be? for the hand of the Lord was with him. Notice with me in closing together this morning that little phrase, that they laid them up in their hearts. We're going to read something similar of Mary in chapter two, verse 19, but Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. In our text, All I want to emphasize here as we close is not even so much what was laid up in their hearts, although we'll make application to that. but rather that in this text that things were laid up in their hearts and that that is still a reality for us. We are not simply at the mercy of our own hearts. We are actively able to lay things up within them. In fact, that's the only choice we have. The only choice we have is not whether or not we lay up things, it's rather what? Whether or not we meditate, fixate deeply, whether or not we contemplate certain things, that's not the option. All our hearts do that. We all do that all the time. Again, the only option is upon what? This laying up of things in the heart is what the older writers called meditation. Now don't be confused. This is nothing like Eastern meditation of emptying ourselves or oms or mantras or anything at all like that. It's actually quite the opposite. It's not an emptying, it's a filling, right? What we are laying up in our hearts. This is coming to the things of God and not just glancing at them, but gazing at them deeply. Consider two people visiting a museum of fine art. One is a fast walker and covers all five floors in about half an hour. It's not actually that big of a museum. If you asked him, he could maybe even say, I saw all the art. There was some landscapes in that room. There was a nice bowl of fruit. This wing had some modern blobs. I'm told they're brilliant. They just looked like blobs to me. But I could even tell you, the fruit, there was a banana. The blobs were blue. But that's really all he's got to say. The second person, only made it through half a floor in the same amount of time. But that person slowed down and gazed. They looked at the art not unlike the way I watch the old Christmas movies, right? Looking for all the deeper things that I haven't seen before. And so at each painting, they stood and they soaked in the nuance of the shading. They saw the texture. They saw what was there in the space and the use of negative space. They caught the meaning that it evoked in their hearts. This landscape evokes This, those blobs aren't random. Those are carefully composed. Those are laden with meaning. So, who really saw more art? There's a difference between just glancing lightly and gazing deeply. Meditation is the deeper gazing at the things of God. It takes the word of God, the truth of God, the attributes of God, the promises of God, the gospel of God, God in all his revealed glories, it gazes, it works them over and over, it actively lays them up in the heart. Christian, maybe you're at a stage of life you feel like is going 10,000 miles an hour. Maybe you feel like you're barely hanging on. We've talked about the holidays. Maybe that's always a stressful rush, a time to live through and get to the far side of rather than to slow down and enjoy the little moments that it can afford. Maybe the weekly rhythm of worship in the church has become so rote you don't feel the ache of it when you don't gather with the saints in the way we talked about in the portrait of fellowship. Maybe for you, this little portrait of meditation in the text, the reality that our heart is a place you choose to lay things up can be a reminder to be very purposeful about what you are laying up there. Maybe it can be a conviction even to do a little housecleaning of the heart. Are there things you've been laying up in there like a hoarder? Things it's time to load up the car and donate or just throw out into the trash. Maybe this week you could focus on and lay up the deeper things, the better things. The things of God. Maybe even the portraits we've had in these passages could be laid up there instead. Could you lay up the portrait of fellowship between Mary and Elizabeth? And what would that lead you to in life? Could you lay up in your heart the portrait of worship from the unborn John? And could you be motivated to rejoice a little more at the proximity of your Savior? Could you lay up the portrait of faith in blessed Mary, believing the word of the Lord, and be reminded your faith is not based upon yourself, your faith is not even in the power and constancy of your faith, but rather in faith's object, the Lord Jesus Christ, who never fails. Could you lay up the portrait of repentance in Zechariah's faithful obedience? What would it look like for you to take hold of one or more of those portraits or any other truth of the Lord and lay them up this week in your heart. Again, you will meditate this week. You will lay things up in your heart. The only question is what? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you even for this opportunity to look to things we may often go quickly by, drought applications we may not always make. I pray, Lord, that you would bless your people through the preaching of your word. We pray, Lord, for any who may be joining us who may have never known what it is to really put saving faith in Jesus Christ, have never really encountered the gospel and its biblical purity. that we may be forgiven all our sins, not because of good works we have done, but because of the staggering work of Christ for us on the cross. Through his life, death, and resurrection, we may be forgiven and saved forever by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Heavenly Father, if there are those here who have not known that, I pray that this is the day they would know the Lord in a saving way. And in all these things, whether through the building up of your people or the gathering in of more to join your people in the fellowship of the Son. I pray, Lord, that you would get yourself glory in all these things. And we pray them in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.