The proclamation of God's Word coming from the book of Luke chapter 1 verses 39 through 56. 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. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leapt 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." Mary's song of praise, the Magnificat. 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. I grew up in Michigan, and at Christmastime, it's always supposed to be cold. And then I moved to the South for a long time, and inevitably, somewhere in the neighborhood of mid to late November, all of a sudden, we would get this cold snap, and it would start to, quote unquote, feel like Christmastime. And then, because it was the South, it would never stay that way, and sometime in December, it would warm up, and all of a sudden, you would no longer be in the mood and be ready for Christmas, and it would kinda, that quote unquote feeling would start to fade away. Just a couple of days ago, I was talking to my mom, who grew up and lived most of her life in Michigan as well, and she moved down to Florida several years ago, and she goes, it just doesn't feel like Christmas. It was 81 degrees today, and I was in shorts and a T-shirt. Some of you, that might sound pretty awesome. But if you listen to songs and you watch Christmas movies and you do all these different things, there's this element of everybody's looking for this feeling of Christmas. What is it that they mean? What is it that we mean by that idea of a feeling of Christmas? I think it's this idea that we're looking for some sort of joy or we're looking for some sort of contentment. We're looking for those moments where all seems right in the world, where the kids aren't fighting, where everybody is getting along, when we can escape and forget about the problems that exist in the rest of our lives and in the rest of the world, that we can just sit back and go, all is good and all is right with the world. But so often, we are looking to worldly things for that feeling, for that experience. And there are, I came up with five different C's in which we can begin to look for our joy and our contentment in. We can look for our joy and contentment as I just talked about in the Christmas season. We try to get some great joy apart from Jesus and apart from the center of that story and just the lights and the music and the parties and all of the different things we do. We try to go, okay, if we could just have all of that go right and perfect, then we could find our joy. We also can look for our joy in our comfort. We can look for joy and comfort of looking for the right amount in our bank accounts, in our checking or our savings or our retirement accounts. And if we could just have the right amount in all of those, if we could just have the right house or a different house, the right car, if you're younger, perhaps it's the right cell phone or a cell phone, or whatever that thing is for you, you think, if I could just be comfortable, if I could just have all of the right things, then I might find joy. Another one might be circumstances. You're looking for your circumstances to be perfect, and okay, and nothing wrong, and no battles, and no issues, and you think that, man, if this one issue could just be solved in my life, then I could find joy, or if I could just enter into this one circumstance, Well, then I could find joy. Or we try to look through it, through our connections, through our relationships. We think if our kids would just obey and do the right thing, if we could find the right spouse, if our spouse would just change and we could fix X, Y, and Z about our spouse, if we had a better boss, better teachers, better coaches, if we had better fill-in-the-blank relationships, if we had more friends, if we had different friends, if we had better friends, if we had better connections, then I could be joyful and I could be happy. Or the final C in which we can begin to look for that joy in is our capabilities. We can look towards our successes and our accomplishments and we think that if I could just get this promotion, if I could just get this scholarship, if I could just meet this goal, if I could just get these set of grades, we think that if we do one of those things, through our capabilities, through our own strength, through our own effort, then we could find joy. But the reality is, in our heart of hearts, every single one of us know, either through experience and striving for those things and finding ourselves empty, or just innately, we know as we listen to it, we think how foolish and silly it is to try to look for our joy in those things, that's a joy that might come and it's temporary, but it quickly fades away. And then we look, and if you've been a Christian for any amount of time, you know the Sunday school answer I'm going for. We are looking for our joy, and the only true place to find joy is in Jesus. But yet, we continue to chase after all those other things. We continue to think that all those other things are going to bring us joy. That comfort, or connections, or our circumstances, our capabilities, or some sort of element of the Christmas season is what's actually going to bring us joy. And our passage today we learn where that true joy is and what that true joy comes from. But here's the thing I realized about studying this passage this week that I've never really slowed down and actually studied this passage. For some crazy reason, I've always kind of skipped past this passage or avoided it. But in resting in it, what I've noticed in this passage tonight, or this passage today, is that there is joy and that joy is something that as we look at it, it's very humbling to see where it comes from and how it comes. And at the same time, it's also very terrifying. There's both elements of this, that if our joy is in Jesus and in Jesus alone, it's very humbling to recognize that, and at the same time, it's very terrifying when we recognize that. Well, what is it that I mean by this? Well, as we look at this passage, what we begin to see in the big picture idea of it is that Jesus' very presence, brings joy and it brings proclamation. Proclamation of both salvation and of judgment. Jesus' very presence brings joy and Jesus' presence brings proclamation. So first and foremost, we see at the beginning of this passage that Jesus' presence brings joy. Mary has gone, if we go back up in verse 38 and read that verse that leads into our passage, we see that it says, and Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. Mary has been met with by the angel. The angel has said, you're going to get pregnant. It's going to be by the Holy Spirit. It's going to be outside of wedlock, and Mary simply trusts God at His very word. She simply trusts God. And in the midst of this, it says that she goes in haste. In other words, she just goes hurriedly with intention, directly, right away. As soon as she finds out this information, she takes off and she goes to be with her cousin Elizabeth, who is married to the priest, who is also pregnant with John, who will become known as John the Baptist. And she goes to spend time with her cousin, she goes to spend time with her priest, or another way to say that is she goes to spend time with her pastor. She needs people. in this circumstance. She needs to be with other people. She needs that insurance. She needs that encouragement. In one respect, as you might say, she needs that Jesus with skin on of somebody standing before her who she can relate with, who's going through the same things and same situations or similar things and similar situations that she's going through because Elizabeth is also pregnant with a miraculous pregnancy And Mary has a miraculous pregnancy and so she goes to her cousin Elizabeth. And the second she comes up and she greets Elizabeth. John, in utero, six months pregnant, leaps for joy inside of Elizabeth's womb. Now think about that for a second. The very presence of Jesus, who based on the timeline and best we can figure, Jesus is probably in what we would call the embryonic state, the very first phase of growth as a baby, and his very presence and showing up in utero in an embryonic state causes John, who is also in utero, to leap for joy inside of Elizabeth. I oftentimes think of this as Mary and Elizabeth meeting each other and coming together and encouraging one another. But this is also when John the Baptist, this is also the first time John the Baptist and Jesus meet one another. And the response is joy. but it's not just joy as John leaps for joy, but it's joy in Elizabeth, as Elizabeth cries and shouts and proclaims several different, very profound and true things. Elizabeth, who is full of the Holy Spirit, as the passage says, Elizabeth, full of the Holy Spirit, exclaims in faith and in trust and in newness of life found in Jesus. She trusts and she proclaims with a loud cry, Mary, blessed are you among women. Now, Elizabeth is not jealous. Elizabeth is absolutely 100% not worshiping Mary here, as some can get confused of what's taking place. That is not the case. Elizabeth is simply looking at Mary and saying, you are blessed. You have been given a gift from God. You have been chosen by God. You are blessed with an unbelievable, amazing gift. just like you and me are blessed. And scripture says that we are blessed because Jesus has come, because Jesus has died, because Jesus has rose from the dead, because Jesus has accomplished our salvation now and forevermore. You and I are blessed. And in that sense, that is the sense at which Elizabeth looks and says, you are blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And in verse 42, Elizabeth goes on to say why it is that the fruit of Mary's womb is so blessed. And she says, why? And you see this great statement of humility within Elizabeth. Now, You and I, knowing this story, we've heard it dozens, some of us maybe hundreds of times. We don't really think that much about that. It's a pretty common statement. Jesus is Lord. We know Jesus is Lord. Mary is pregnant with Jesus at this point in time, so of course He's Lord. But when Luke writes this to his audience, when Elizabeth proclaims this, this is significant and huge. This is absolutely radical statement. For Elizabeth to look and go, her husband or her cousin's baby. is her Lord. Elizabeth in that moment is proclaiming Jesus is God. God has come. God has come in flesh. Jesus has come as 100% God and 100% man. God has become incarnate. This baby is the Lord. She proclaims her need and her longing for that and her joy found in that Lord. And then in verse 45, she says, and blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Jesus' very presence brings joy. And then Elizabeth not only blesses, says Mary is blessed, proclaims that this baby is Lord, this baby is the Christ, the Messiah. But then Elizabeth comes back and says, Mary, you're not crazy. Now, Mary didn't necessarily think she was crazy, but at the same time, when you've had something radical and amazing and miraculous like this take place in your life, it's easy to start to question it. It's easy to go back on it. It's easy to think, I don't really, is this really happening? And Elizabeth, in grace and mercy, looks at Mary and says, blessed are you, for you believed, for you took God at His word, you trusted Him in His very words, and yes, you are pregnant. Yes, you are going to be the mother of the Lord, of the Christ, of the Messiah, of God incarnate, who comes to take away the sin of the world, who comes to live a perfect life, to die on that cross for our sin, to rise again so that we could have life now and forevermore through a beautiful and wonderful and amazing free gift. Jesus' very presence brings joy. When I was a junior high pastor at my last church, we hosted a conference that our students led. They did all of the speaking and worship leading, and they did, they led seminars and missions projects. They did all the behind the scenes work, and it was just a really cool conference that we invited lots of other churches to, and it was just always, it was always a really special time and a really special experience with that. Well, our senior pastor at the time would come at one of, we usually did it four different nights. On one of those nights, he would show up, and he didn't do it with any fanfare. Nobody would know he was coming. Nobody would know when he was coming. All of a sudden, he would just kind of walk in the back of the auditorium, kind of slide in the back, and inevitably, one of the staff members would notice it. And either a whisper would go throughout the entire staff or a text would go throughout the staff that said, Pope is in the house. And literally the number of times I received almost that exact text. The senior pastor's name was not the Pope, he was Randy Pope. We may have joked about him being the Pope, but he was not the Pope. So Randy would come in and his purpose in being present was just to encourage, to uplift, to care for and to say, hey, look, what you guys are doing matters and it's significant. And it wouldn't take anything for him to walk in and all of a sudden everybody knew about it. Jesus' very presence is that times infinity. Because it's not just a presence of encouragement and uplifting, but this is a presence that brings joy, that brings everlasting joy, that brings joy that never ends, that brings joy that never fades away. Jesus' very presence brings joy and satisfies us in a way that we could never possibly understand. It is a joy that satisfies us through this Christmas season that makes Christmas not a feeling, but a life-changing event. It's a joy that surpasses, that can't be found in our circumstances or our comfort or our connections. It can't be found in our capabilities. It can't be found in any of those. This is a joy that never ends, that never fades away. Jesus' very presence brings joy. It causes John to leap and it causes Elizabeth to cry out in proclamation of what is taking place. And it causes Mary to proclaim. It causes Mary not just to proclaim, but it causes Mary to break out in song. And now, This section here, you'll notice there's a little note in your Bible that calls it the Magnificat. That's not the original name for it. The name Magnificat is a name that came later in Latin. It did not come in the original scripture text. But that is what we most commonly know this as. It's the first of four songs that are sung in the course of Jesus' birth narrative. And Mary begins to proclaim. And the first thing she does in verses 46 through 49 is she magnifies the Lord. That word magnify in Greek literally means to enlarge. So she is magnifying or she is enlarging the Lord. Now, that doesn't mean that she is making God bigger or that God is becoming bigger. It means that in her heart, as it talks about, my soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices. You have this picture of that every part of who Mary is, is lifting up God. He is becoming bigger in her knowledge and wisdom. He is becoming bigger in her understanding of who He is. He is becoming bigger in her understanding of what He has come to do. and He is being magnified within her. Jesus' presence brings proclamation of the magnification of the Lord. And why is it that she's magnifying Him? Because He has come at the end of that verse, He has come as Savior. She recognizes that this baby that she is going to give birth to is her Savior. And in the next phrase, she talks about the humble estate that she is in. In verse 48, she says, He has looked on the humble estate of His servant. for behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. He has looked at the humble estate." What is it that she means by humble estate? I think there's kind of a double meaning to this idea of humble estate. On the one hand, humble estate means she's come from a lowly, insignificant, village of Nazareth who at that day in time wouldn't have even shown up on a map. It shows up on our maps in our Bibles because that's where Mary and Joseph were from. But in her day and time that village was so small, so insignificant, it didn't even show up on a map. She comes from this lowly humble, poor place and village. There is no fanfare for when Jesus comes. Jesus does not come from royalty. He does not come with any great fanfare. He does not come with any great production or scene. It's not televised, it's not tweeted, it's not live streamed. The world doesn't even know it took place. She comes from a humble estate, lowly in the world's eyes, insignificant in the world's eyes. But at the same time, this humble estate that she's talking about is her sin, and her brokenness, and her lostness, and the separation she has in relationship with her Heavenly Father. She knows that she's broken. She knows she needs a Savior. She just said it in verse 47, that her spirit praises Jesus, the Savior, the Lord, the King of kings and Lord of lords who came to take away our sin. She gives him praise knowing that she is a sinner in need of his saving grace. And then she goes on in the conclusion of this first section of the Magnificat, and she says, she proclaims who God is in his very character and nature. He says, for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. In this first section, she magnifies the Lord and gives him all of the honor and all of the praise from every part of who she is and who God has made her to be. And then she moves into verses 50 to 53, and she starts to talk about salvation, and she starts to talk about justice. This is the part that should greatly humble us, and this is the section that should greatly terrify us. Look at her words in verse 50. It says, "...and His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation." She begins proclaiming and talking about the very mercy of God, the God who has given mercy, the God who has given grace, the God who has given us Jesus to give us salvation, to give us freedom, the God who gave us Jesus who For the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty." She recognizes that God has given us mercy. And who does He give mercy to but those who fear Him? Those who recognize their sin, those who recognize they are not worthy, those who recognize there's nothing we can do to earn God's favor or to become in better standing with Him, that it is by God's mercy and by God's mercy alone. And this goes from generation to generation. And then she continues in verse 51 and says, He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts." He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of our hearts. Scattered is just a simply poetic way of saying he is condemning, judging, and punishing all sin for all eternity in hell. That scattering of the proud of heart is a condemnation and a judgment and a punishment for sin that doesn't ever end. This is the part that, if you are not in Christ, should absolutely terrify us. because we are condemned, the proud. And what does it say? The proud of words and the proud of actions? Nope, it's not about our words, it's not about our actions, it's not about what we do or say, it's about our hearts and the condition of our hearts. It's the proud of hearts that are scattered, that are judged, that are condemned. And then she goes on and it continues. In verse 52, and he says, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He judges the proud. He judges those who thinks that they have it all together. And then in verse 52, we learn that he brings down rulers. He brings down those in authority. He crushes those who rule if unfair, who are unfair, who are unjust, who are wicked. He absolutely crushes those authorities. He brings them down. Now, before we think, oh, I'm not one in authority, I'm not a government official, or I'm not the one leading in different ways, Let me remind you, there's no, or let me point out here, there's no difference in this passage between what kind of rulers it's talking about. It speaks of thrones, but I believe it's speaking to anyone in authority. So if you are a government official, if you are the owner of a business, if you are a boss, if you are a parent, if you are a husband or a mother, if you are anyone, a teacher or a coach or anyone with any sort of authority at any place in your life, God is speaking to us in this place. If you are a leader, if you are one in authority, and we exercise that authority unjustly, unfairly, or in wickedness, in disobedience to God, it says that we will be brought down. We will be separated. We will fall under God's judgment. But there's hope. Look at the second part of verse 52. It says, God exalts those humble estate. Those who, like Mary, recognize our sinfulness, our separation in relationship with God, who recognize how broken and wicked we are, who recognize that we are looking to this world for our hope and our meaning and our joy. When we recognize that and we begin to turn in confession and repentance of that, We are exalted. The humble are exalted. Those who recognize how sinful they are, those who recognize that their joy is found in Jesus and Jesus alone, those who recognize there's nothing we can do to earn God's favor, we are exalted. We are lifted up. It says in the next verse, the hungry, are fed. God meets us in, you think of, kind of think of the Beatitudes in this. There's this idea of those who are hungry, those who are low, those who recognize their need, God fills them. God meets us. God grows us. God meets and satisfies our deepest longings. He forgives our sin, our guilt. He forgives our shame. He gives us hope and peace and joy. But then it also says, the rich are brought down. As she begins to conclude in verse 53 of this section, she says, empty. But those who hunger, those who are humble, those who recognize that Jesus is their Savior and He is their only hope, Those, we, you and I are lifted up and we are exalted. And then in her final two verses of the Magnificat, she says, he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. In verses 54 and 55, we learn and see that God's promises are absolutely true. They will never end. They will never fade away. They are guaranteed. This Magnificat is written in Greek, what is known as the Arist tense. It's a past tense that simply means all of the actions related to that verb are completed and done, and it sure is finished. And Mary, in this proclamation, in this prophecy of who Jesus is and what Jesus has come to do, has spoken in the aorist tense. That's significant. It's significant because what it means is that God's promises are guaranteed. God's promises will be fulfilled. God's promises are as sure as completed, even though they will take place in the future. And it's not just for you and me, but it is for generations. to come that God has promised, his faithfulness to us, to draw us to himself. He judges the proud, the mighty, and the rich, but he promises to save those who are humbled, those whom he is working in to draw to himself, who recognize that we can't earn our salvation, that it comes by Christ, and in Christ alone it comes to those who are in a humble estate, who are low and brought, and he takes them and he brings them high. This is actually a few If you look at literature, if you look at movies, if you look at stories, if you look at those things that we resonate with, that we would say, man, these are good movies and these are good stories and these are good songs, so often this is the theme that runs throughout them. It's somebody lowly, it's somebody outcast, it's somebody, the underdog who is super low and super, comes from very modest means and all of a sudden that person is the one who is exalted. One of my Favorite stories probably my favorite story outside of scripture would be the Lord of the Rings and and as I think about this I picture the hobbits and you got Mary and Pippin and Sam and Frodo and And they come from the Shire. They're hobbits. They're halflings. They're insignificant. They're lowly They're not thought of the rest of the world couldn't care less the rest of Middle-earth rather couldn't care less that they even exist Much of Middle-earth doesn't even know that they exist But these four hobbits set out on a journey to destroy evil and the greatest of evil in their time. And you see as the story unfolds, Frodo and Sam go to Mount Doom and throw in the ring and the greatest wickedness and evil of that age and Sauron is destroyed. And Mary and Pippin go to the most wicked wizard of the age in Saruman, and they defeat him and get rid of him and defeat him. And you have these lowly hobbits that rise up and they defeat the greatest of the evil. And we love these stories. It's found in the Chronicles of Narnia. It's found in Harry Potter. It's found in sports movies. It's found in musicians. It's found in everyday stories. We love these stories of people who are lowly and insignificant brought high to beat all the odds or to defeat and crush and destroy evil and get rid of what evil power there is. We love these stories because this is Jesus. Because this is Jesus who came from lowly, insignificant. There's nothing spectacular about the family that he comes from. He comes and he crushes and he destroys the evil in this world and in the universe. He destroys the evil that is within you and me. And he is exalted to the highest place. And then we also love these stories because it's us. We are that lowly, sinful, broken, lost people who can't do anything to fix ourselves. And there's nothing in this world that will satisfy us. But Jesus, as we humble ourselves, as He works within us that we humble ourselves, He exalts us and He brings us to the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and we become exalted in Christ, by Christ, and through Christ alone. So what is our response? There's three things to point to today. First and foremost, we sing and we magnify the Lord just as Mary sang. We sing this song with Mary. Read it. Meditate on it. Contemplate on it. This song that Mary sung is, there are reflections of what she sang all throughout the Old Testament. From Genesis, from Deuteronomy, from 1 Samuel and Hannah's songs, throughout Habakkuk, Zephaniah, throughout Psalms. The themes that resonate in her song come from all of those places. Why? Because she had known and memorized and been taught scripture. And it just, in this moment, it just oozes out of her in this great song and this great proclamation. It just overflows out of her because of who God is and what God has done. So we magnify the Lord, we enlarge the Lord within our hearts and our souls, we enlarge the Lord and we grow in Him as we give Him praise. And the second way in which we respond to this is we come to Jesus for our joy and our rest. We come to Jesus in our joy and in our rest because His very presence In utero, in that first trimester, in an embryonic state, His very presence brings joy and John to leap for joy, brings Elizabeth to proclaim joy, brings Mary to break out in song. We come to Jesus for our joy and our rest, and as we come into His presence, we are filled. Have you looked? Have you put all of your joy, all of your hope in Jesus and in Jesus alone? Because that is the only place we can find it. And finally, just as Mary does, we proclaim. We proclaim the gospel. We proclaim the Word of God. We proclaim the fact that we are saved, that we are made righteous, that we are going to be with God now and forevermore. that we are His, that we are His people, that we are His children, that we are His sons and daughters, that we belong to God. We proclaim it to anyone and everyone who will listen to it. Listen to us. So in this Christmas season, who can you begin to point to the joy that is found in Jesus and in Jesus alone? Who can you pray for? Who can you begin to build a relationship with? Who can you begin to tell the story of the gospel to and what it's done in your life and how you've been transformed with it? Who can you begin to invite into your home? Who can you invite to come to worship? Who can you invite to join us on Christmas Eve to hear and receive and learn about the great salvation that comes and joy that comes in Christ and in Christ alone? The beauty of the picture of this story is you have Elizabeth, the old barren woman who has given up hope that she would ever be a mother, becomes miraculously pregnant with the last prophet of the old covenant in John the Baptist, who proclaims Jesus is coming. And then you have this transition where Elizabeth and Mary meet. Mary, this young, full of life, ahead of her mom, who is pregnant with the Lord of the new covenant, with the Savior of the world. You have this transition that is taking place where the old covenant is being fulfilled in the new covenant and Jesus is bringing it all to this great culmination. His very presence brings joy and proclamation. Let's pray.