2, the gospel of Luke chapter 1, verse 42. 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. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever. Let us just pray together. Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you are God who speaks. You are God who has been pleased to come from the transcendent to come into this world. We thank you, almighty God, that you have done that through your son, Jesus Christ. There was no way of us having dealings with you, except through him who has enabled us to have dealings with you, the almighty God. Now God and man at table are sat down. Lord, we long to hear from you this afternoon. We pray that you will minister your word to each one of us. and help us, oh God, that we may draw closer to yourself. Those that do not know you, almighty God, that this might be their moment of salvation. We pray, Lord, for your people, that they may draw closer and be more like Christ, that we may live for you the whole of our lives. We pray, Father, that you will do these things, helping your servant as he speaks, that he may speak as one speaking only the words of God, not his own. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. I titled my sermon as The Appropriate Response to the Message of Christmas, and you can see why I was hesitating. How should we respond? How should we respond? How should we approach Christmas? What is our best response when we get to know what the message of Christmas is? This is what has been the message of this season. The whole world is in some way celebrating Christmas. But what are they celebrating? Or more specifically, what are you celebrating? What is your attitude towards Christmas? There are many responses towards Christmas. Some people, Christmas is a time of giving. I think we know that this is a time when many people say it is time to exchange gifts. and a time for shopping. In fact, the business people have marked down prices on most of their stock so that people may be able to benefit from the sales. It is time for shopping. But for others, it is time to be thankful. You know, Christmas comes at the end of the year, The year has gone. There is so much to be thankful for. And for others, after a year of hard work, Christmas poses an opportunity to relax, to rest. And yet to others, it is a time for cultural celebration. They may not even be Christian. Their religion may not be Christian. In fact, in the Middle East, this is where we had a record of the greatest, the most magnificent Christmas tree. They are not Christian, but it has become cultural to all humanity to engage in festivities so that they may enjoy the lights, decorations, and all this festive atmosphere. And yet there are also others who think that this is the time to do the things that they have always desired to do. For example, they were at secondary school. They just wrote their exams. Now they are free to indulge themselves. They are going to engage in all sorts of activities. They are going to drink alcohol for the first time. They are going to try drugs. and some plan to degrade their bodies to the max. This is the time. There is also another unique set of people that see Christmas as a time to have a go at Christianity. This is the time to have a go at Christianity, how fake this religion is. They are celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December, which was for the Roman pagan worship. And they have evidence, they will point out, and so on and so forth. So, this Christianity that you are trying to force on us is fake on the basis of that. They do that year after year. Dear brethren and friends, there are a lot of things that happen at Christmas. and our minds can actually be drawn to so many things in a lot of directions. But then we have to come back to this basic question. What is the appropriate response to the message of Christmas? And I would like us to learn from the eyewitnesses, from people that were there when this happened. Those that surrounded the announcement and the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. What was their response? I would like us to learn this in three particular lessons. And the first one, which is actually going to be quite protracted, and the other two are quite short. is that the appropriate response to the message of Christmas, which we must fix in our minds, we must actually be very clear and make it like the North Star, the guiding light, is worship. The appropriate response to the message of Christmas is worship. Let me prove that from the text itself. Let's begin with Elizabeth. We see in verse 41, the Bible tells us, 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. What is she talking about? And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Verse 44. For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. What was she doing? She worshiped. She recognized that there was some favor that had come away from themselves. Blessed are you. Blessed from where? From on high. Elizabeth was anticipating the birth of Christ. And she broke out simply in praise. She recognized that God had blessed Mary. What about verse 67 concerning her husband Zechariah? Zechariah was a priest and he was a man who is said to have been holy, to have been righteous and obeyed God in his life. But there we meet Zechariah and in verse 67 we read, and his father Zechariah, that is the father of John the Baptist, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. This response is identical to that of his wife. God blesses And he blesses God for that, that God has brought favor to mankind. He has brought salvation. Let us skip and go to chapter 2. In verse 10, there we see the angels. The angels announcing to the shepherds the arrival of the Savior. Verse 13 we are taught, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host. Doing what? Praising. Praising who? Praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. We were singing this song. Again, the angelic host looks to heaven, looks to God, breaks out in praise and worship of God. One week later, after the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see Simeon at the temple. In chapter 2 again, verse 28, we read, Simeon took the Lord Jesus Christ. He was supposed to conduct circumcision as the man appointed at the temple. And he says, the Bible reads, he took him up in his arms and blessed God. He blessed God. But we also see another person there, Anna, in verse 36, a prophetess. She was a widow. who had loved God, dedicated herself to the life of worship and honoring God, living for God. Verse 38, we read, and coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. The right response is to look to heaven. It is heavenward. The focus must be on our God. It must be worship. There are many things that I talked about which people focus on. They are not necessarily harmful. They are good for others, especially when you are giving and you are helping and you are considering maybe sponsoring someone, giving them a scholarship and things like that. A season of giving, very good thing, but that is not the response that we see in the eyewitnesses. The people that were present when this thing happened, they responded with worship. Their disposition was heavenward. This is what we are taught here. And this is not all. The wise men, away from the book of Luke, in Matthew chapter 2 verse 2, the wise men there, when they were confronted, what did they say? They were looking for the one who had been born. And when they arrived here, when they arrived there, we are told they worshipped him. In fact, they testified to that in Matthew 2, verse 2, saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. The birth of Christ, worship is the appropriate response. We ought to worship him. Every one of them, every one of those people, went to worship him. It was known that the appropriate response was worship. Whoever got to know about Christ and his birth was responding in worship or was at least expected to respond in worship. Even the hypocrite Herod says, show me where he is that I may go and worship. That is the appropriate response. May I challenge you, brethren, that if Christmas is actually a time for anything, if Christmas is a time for anything, it is a time for worship. It is a time for worship. How are you faring as an individual? How has it been these past few weeks when you have been thinking about Christmas? When the Christmas carols have been played in the malls and you started hearing about the spirit, the air of Christmas? What have you... How has been your response? How have you fared? That is a question we must ask ourselves and seek that we may improve. Are we inclined to have less? of worship during Christmas so that we can dedicate time to other more important things? Is that our attitude? That is a contradiction, isn't it? We should seek more of worship when we recall, when we think about Christmas. Especially if we are testifying to the world that are taking it the wrong way. More. of worship, more of Jesus, more of Him, and less of self-pleasing. And dear brethren, without worship, Christmas is abused. It is not Christmas. It is misrepresented. It is given a wrong name. It is abused, and it is used for the wrong reasons. Christmas is a time for worship. But maybe it is important that we ask the question, what is worship? That question will be answered in the text as well. But maybe just to give something that you can maybe use is that worship actually is an attitude of the heart. It is an attitude of the heart. You know, when the heart is filled with wonder and thanksgiving, we've seen it among the people that we are present, filled with wonder, filled with adoration at the person and work of God. When the heart is filled, it will find release in praise and adoration. You cannot hold it back. So if your heart is saturated, it is filled, it has to break forth. There is no choice. What does that say of us? Why don't we worship? Maybe we are living in sin. Maybe we do not have much of Christ in our hearts. Maybe we don't even read the Bible or we read the Bible and we are superficial. We read casually. It doesn't touch us. We don't get to know Christ. We don't get to know him. You know what happens when you fall in love or maybe before you even fall in love. And you see, I'm speaking from a man's perspective, you see this young lady. For some of us, it mattered what she looked like. You see this woman, this girl, is gorgeous and stunning. And your heart is confused. You start inquiring, getting counsel from people. You might even be made up already, but you are getting confirmation from people. They tell you, do you know her? You need to know her. Maybe make friends. Do not just go directly, like you are going to marry immediately. First know the person. And as you get to know the person, you begin to see the beautiful attributes of the person. You get to know the hearts. You get to know what they like, how they respond in different circumstances. And suddenly, they become even more attractive to you. They become even more... They become nicer. She's a nice person. She's a good person. It becomes difficult for you to hold. You may hold it as a secret for some time, but you will have to come out and tell someone about the positive things that you are seeing. because you are feeding your heart, your mind and your thoughts with the knowledge of the other person. If we don't do that with our Lord, with our God, we will not flow out in love for him. It will not happen. Dear friends, may I remind you that this time was a difficult time. They had been waiting for many years. You know, from the time of David, the golden years of David, things started going downhill. When the people were overwhelmed by their sin, the Israelites were sinning against God, started worshiping other gods, and God brought judgment on them, let them go into exile, and they were miserable there. They were taken over by different superpowers. Superpower after superpower and they were colonized. They were not a people anymore But throughout God had maintained his promise that they were his special people They were his special people and this message Not only came from Moses, but it started coming through the prophets as well. There will be a restoration of There will be one who will come as a king, the king of righteousness. There will be one who will be born, who will be governor. There is one who is going to take over the throne of David, but he will never die. We are looking forward to that day. And Malachi happens to be the last prophet through whom the messages of God came to the people. And then they lived in this period 400 years of silence. God was not speaking, but yet they were anticipating, they were expecting. So what was happening? It is not the same people that lived in the time of Malachi that we see at the beginning of the New Testament. Those people had long died and their children had died and their children had died and so on and so forth. So generations had passed. How did they keep the information? They kept comforting each other by word of mouth. They kept on comforting each other by word of mouth. But there is something that happened in the last book. When God last spoke to them, God complained to them. And what did he complain about? He complained about their worship. he complained about their devotion to him. In Malachi, may I just speak out a few passages there. In Malachi chapter 1, verse 16 to 14, we read the priests were criticized there for offering defiled sacrifices. And they also showed contempt for God Because they offered what? Blemished animals. They were not honoring God with the best. What is that? They dishonored God in worship, and God raised it with them. They lacked reverence. In Malachi 1, verse 6, there, the people were accused of not showing proper reverence for God. What question does God ask? A son honors his father, a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? That is the situation that was there. But there were also unfaithful, marital unfaithfulness, Malachi chapter 2, Verse 10 to 16, there was also social injustice. The strong were oppressing the weak. The rich were trampling the poor. Chapter 3, verse 5, there was exploitation of workers. There was exploitation of widows. There was exploitation of orphans and the poor. This is the state of affairs when God last spoke. Did the state of affairs change? We will discover. For 400 years, there they were. God was unhappy. He says, you are robbing me in tithes and offerings. But they were also skeptical. They were also complaining that this worship is boring. It is a burden. But he made a promise. There was one who was going to come. There was a messenger who was going to come, who was going to announce the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why now I want us to look at the one person that we didn't look at on her reaction to Christmas. And that is Mary. This is where we are going to learn from a number of things from Mary. Because here, she is actually the mother. She is the one who carried the Lord. She is a witness, yes, but she bore Christ. She is the one who raised him up. She had this unique intimacy with him, which no one else experienced. And as the mother, what do we see? What was her response? The one who was mostly direct with the Savior's birth. We go back to our text, Luke chapter 1, verse 46. What does she say? My soul magnifies the Lord. My soul magnifies the Lord. And my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. And the song goes on and on and on in the pattern of the Psalms. When you read the Psalms, you see this, you compare and you are saying, wow, this is a Psalm in the New Testament. A Psalm of praise, a Psalm of adoration. And there is no other Psalm in there. She bursts forth from her soul. And she bursts forth from her soul at the prospect of a Messiah. She bursts forth at the prospect of redemption that has now come. We have been left unattended to. We started losing hope. We were hoping for a Messiah and here he is. And no, not here he is, here he is in my womb. She knew she was going to be the mother of the son of God. That is what the promise was. She was going to be the mother of the one who was going to be called holy. She was going to be the mother of a child who was going to be named Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins. He shall save you, Mary, from your sins and the others. And she knew that. She was informed about the favor from God. She was going to name this son Emmanuel, meaning God with us. Now, the interesting thing is from her hymn, from her song, she appears, she portrays, she actually shows a lot of knowledge, a lot of knowledge of history, the history of Israel. And you can imagine stories of Abraham, and the Sarah, and the impossibility of having a child, and the fact that God did something magnificent, wonderful, to bring about Isaac, through whom salvation was going to come in Jesus Christ, must have been common knowledge among them, and she knew it. But she appears to have been more of a woman that was meditative. thinking Possibly paying attention close attention. You know this time they used to go to synagogues She must have been learning and that had embraced these things You know how we know it the Bible keeps on telling us that when something happened or something was said She cherished it in her heart She was a thoughtful person But she was a very young lady. She was a girl of about 12 or 13. And to think that she had such knowledge, that she had such high view, a high view of God at this age is just mind-boggling. And she knows this child will be great because she was taught. This child is going to be an heir to the throne of David. She knew that. And now, when all this happens, then she proclaims, my spirit rejoices in God. I want us to observe that our response of worship must be with a God-honoring attitude. It must be with a God-honoring attitude. Let us see from our text the attitude of Mary. In verse 46 and verse 47, There we read, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. She is praising God. Where is she praising God from? What is the source of her praise? She tells us my soul and my spirit. Meaning worship is of the heart. Worship is spiritual. Worship is not an outward act. It is not something that is external. When you consider the minds, the emotion, and the will, all these that are the moral and mental impulses of a human heart, they flow from within. And this was flowing from within. True worship flows, originates from within. It is not an external display. You know, I recall two guys at school when I was in accountancy college. These guys were very unruly. And the rest of the days, they were Olympians, basically. On the day of worship, in the morning, you would just hear very loud music, and they were playing Christian music. What were they doing? They were psyching themselves up, pumping themselves up to go and worship, to go to church. That listening to, that mere listening to music, or listening to a choir, or even the mere listening to a sermon, These could be rituals that support worship, that are expressions of worship, but true worship happens in the heart, happens from the heart. And Mary says, my spirit, my spirit magnifies the Lord. My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices. in my God. But if you see here, it is not like she sat and she planned this thing. This came because she was overwhelmed by what filled her, the knowledge of the great deeds and the greatness of God. It so overwhelmed her, it so filled her that it came out. As Africans, we are familiar with going to funerals. And when you arrive, when you start preparing yourselves, ah, my chitenga, where is it? Let's put on. Now, I think we can start. And you know what you're talking about? Start mourning. Start waiting. Prepare. You can do that. This is not how worship comes. It is spontaneous. It flows. as a response to the wonder of what God has done and who he is. We are going to look at that. But this worship, as you can see, this worship from Mary appears to be so overwhelming. It is so intense. It is not something that is happening just, you know, sitting back with your hand in the pocket and You know, this is intense. This is serious business. Remember how Hannah was praying to God? Her lips were shivering. Her spirit was showing outside. Intense worship. But you know, this woman also recognizes herself, her position. She recognizes that she was really a nobody in society. She was not known for anything. She denied herself. And there is a denial of oneself. Our brother in the morning was talking about giving yourself as a servant. The word used here for servant is actually slave. You have no rights of your own. And you are giving of yourself to the one that owns you. So she worships with self-abandon. She is not thinking of herself. She's not thinking that she's a chairperson of an NGO or something, and you know it might not look good opening my mouth and singing this hymn that they are singing as we do. No, she recognizes who she is in the presence of God. Dear friends, before God, We are to humble ourselves if our worship is to be acceptable. But then, she says, she magnifies the Lord. She rejoices in the Lord. This is not a one-off. This is something that is to be part of our lives. The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians chapter 1 verse 20, my goal in life is that Christ may be magnified through me wherever my life, by life, whether by life or by death, in all circumstances. It is not enough to just come on Sunday. True worship goes through all sorts of occasions, whether you are mourning, whether you are rejoicing, worship happens in all circumstances. So friends, this is what worship is. And lastly, acceptable worship is for who God is and for his works, what he does. That is what she spends the rest of her psalm in. talking about who God is, what he has done, who God is in relation to her. She talks of him as God, my savior. So we know that she was worshipping God. She wasn't worshipping any other. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ was saying, that the one to be worshipped is God. When he was tempted, he says in the desert, when he was taken, to be tempted, he says, you shall worship and serve the Lord, your God only. And here we see, she tells us, my soul magnifies the Lord, and then my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. But she goes further, she doesn't just say God, like the Muslims talk about their God, How can we worship a God who has not had relations with you? You cannot know Him. Because He is our Savior, we worship Him. Our worship is tied to the redemption that He has done in our lives. And she doesn't ask only, she doesn't talk about the things that have happened to her only. She says, yes, I am blessed. And the generations will call me blessed. That is what she says in verse 48. She says, God has done these things. He has looked at the humble state of his servant. From now on, they will call me blessed. Not that they will call me that highly placed person on a pedestal. No, no, no, no. But blessed by God. that God has been pleased to place his favor on me. So she's pointing back to God. She points at what God has done for her. But look at this, for he who is mighty has done great things for me. And holy is his name. Then she talks about His mercy is for those who fear Him. So she's not just talking about herself. She's selfless. She's recognizing the work of God in others. Do you see baptisms happening in other places? There was baptism going on. Does that excite you? Does that draw you to worship? Do you remember that Christ has said he will build his church? And the gates of hell will not prevail. He is doing it. And here she says, of this same subject, his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation, those who will come. Others, this is what he is going to do for them. But she also looks back and sees what God has done. Wonderful works of God. The Israelites have this habit of looking back to see the works of God. Christians have this habit of looking back to see the wonderful works of God. What God has done for us. She had specific things. God has shown strength. with his arm. He has scattered the proud. For example, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and others. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones. Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and now the Romans. God is mighty and he does these things so she recognizes that God is mighty she recognizes that he is faithful and that is what she says in verse 54 he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers to Abraham and to his offspring the promise of God stands And God has now come to fulfill that which he promised many years ago, thousands of years ago. And the thing that he has been repeating until 400 years ago, which we never heard, this is what God has done. So dear friends, we have to worship our God for who he is. He is a powerful God. He is holy in his attributes. We worship him, but we also worship him in the things that he does. Brethren, how are we to worship God? We are to worship him in spirit. We are to worship him in truth. And this is what it means. I pray also that all of us see the sense of responding in worship to Christmas. Not like Harold, the hypocrite. You know, that shows up in church, it is Christmas, I'm going to worship God, but immediately, because it is Christmas Eve, you go and indulge in sin. What kind of worship is that? Or later on, you forsake the same God and live your life as you want. No, dear friend, the Lord can save you. Reconsider, if you do not know Christ, reconsider your way of life and seek Him. He is saying you can seek Him and you will find Him. Those who seek Him, find Him. If you seek Him, you will find Him. If you seek Him, you call on His name, you will be saved. All who have ever sought Him, all who have ever called on Him have been saved. and you will be no exception. Brethren, friends, is this the way you respond to Christmas? May the Lord be gracious to us as we think about these things. Amen.