The reading today comes from Luke 1, 39 through 56. At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greetings, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice, she exclaimed, blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of the Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her. And Mary said, my soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed for the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, but he has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever. just as he promised our ancestors. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and returned home. This is a word of the Lord. Praise be to God. As you all know, I take worship very seriously because I take God very seriously. And when we have guest preachers, I don't go through formalities of introducing them. You can get to know them after they finish their guest preaching if you don't know them. Worship is something that we want to keep in remembrance that we're in God's presence, and that He is awesome, and that His dignity is important to maintain. And as we end this year, I have a get ready to preach my sermon as you just heard the word read. And this is the final Sunday of 2019. I just want to sort of break the rule or bend the rule a little bit and just say to you how much I love you and have appreciated you this past year. And in fact, these past years, you are You're a motley crew, but you're a wonderful crew. And I love you very much. And thank you for worshiping with me and me being able to worship with you and for you listening to my sermons as as I prepare them. And as as you know, I seriously prepare them. Well, today, last day of the year, many pastors are preaching either an Advent sermon or a New Year sermon. And any pastor worth his salt wants his congregation to know and love the history and the power of the Christ who has come into the world to save them from their sins. And any pastor worth his salt wants his congregation to be well prepared to face the coming year because we don't know what the coming year has in store. It has many unknowns and possible trials and tribulations. In fact, I would bet money that you're going to have trials and tribulations in the next year. And I'm not a gambling man. I don't have to be as a certainty. Even Jesus in John 15 says, 16, I mean, he says, be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. Right after he says in the world, you shall have tribulations. So you're in the world, you're going to have tribulations. But as you face these tribulations, I want you to do so in faith. And I want you to face tribulations, not just to get through them. But I want you to face tribulations in order to serve God. Serve God in your tribulation. Serve God through your tribulation. Serve God because of your tribulation. Look to Him so that people can look at you and glorify Him for what He's doing in you in the tribulation and through the tribulation. And that means that you need to be and I need to be responding intentionally according to the Word of God to whatever providentially comes. Now, that's an important statement that whatever providentially comes. Nothing is going to come your way this year that was not ordered up by God. Nothing's going to take him by surprise. Many things will take you by surprise, but nothing is going to take him by surprise. And as we as I want you to be prepared for the coming year and as I want you to think about the history of Christ redeeming us, Instead of preaching two sermons, I'm gonna do both in one sermon today. And this text that Mike Hall just read, Dr. Hall just read, lends itself to teach us the way God wants his people to live for him. at the same time while it tells us about Christ coming into the world to save sinners through His servant Mary. God teaches us by giving us history from Christ's coming and giving us the convicting example of the glorious response of this young girl named Mary whom God has selected to bless and to use to accomplish His will. And as you already know, I'm not going to ask you to make resolutions so that you can try to make yourself a better person in 2020. I don't care about what you make of yourself. What I care about is what God makes of you. So as always, I'm going to ask you to attend to the means of grace that God has provided for us so that He can set you apart for His purpose, so that He can help you do His will, so that He can prepare you for what is to come, so that He will guide you through His plans for you. And of course, when we talk about the means of grace, which this sermon is not about the means of grace, but I'm gonna talk about one of the means of grace. The means of grace are the word, 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. The word is grace to us. The sacraments, meaning the Lord's Supper and legitimate baptism is grace to us, says 1 Corinthians 10. Prayer is a means that God has given to us that we receive grace, Philippians 4, 6, and 7, and other places. Worship is a means of grace. It's not a formal means of grace in some of the catechisms and confessions, but in scripture, Worship is a means of grace, says Psalm 73. And godly fellowship is a means of grace. That's something that we all should focus on maybe a little more. Romans 1, 11, and 12 says, I long to see you in order that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong. That is that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. That is grace. That is a means of grace's godly fellowship. And today, after mentioning all of these means God gives us as His method of equipping us for the future, I want us to focus on one of these in a special way. And I want to use the Mother Mary as an example of what can be true about you. and what can be true about me." Mary trusted God even when it seemed impossible. And in her own words, back in Luke 1 verse 38, she called herself the maidservant of the Lord. That's the doulos, she's a slave. of the Lord. Mary identified herself as a bond servant, as a handmaiden, because she wanted to offer God her humble, trusting, submissive obedience. Now think about that for you for a second. Do you want to offer to God your humble, trusting, submissive obedience? It's not going to just happen. It's got to be intentional. If it's not intentional, it's like the ball in a pinball machine that nobody's using the flippers for. You're just rocking through life. You're just responding to life. in any and every way that comes to your mind. So she wanted to offer to God humble, trusting, submissive obedience. And we ought to want the same. She was committed to doing whatever she was told to do. Now, that is also something I want to ask you. Are you ready to be committed to do whatever God wants you to do, as you discern it according to the scriptures, as you learn the scriptures. Her calling was to serve, and she did. And this was a great honor, the greatest honor that any woman has ever been given. Even though the scripture does not say she's the greatest among women, she did have the greatest honor among women. So to this day, Mary is the, is known as the blessed mother of Jesus. But her service, remember, led to suffering. And if you serve God, your service is going to lead to suffering. Mary, when she realized that she was going to be pregnant as a virgin, she declared she was willing. And by declaring she was willing men, that she was ready to give up almost everything or give up everything she knew and loved. She had to be willing to give up Joseph, the man she was engaged to be married to. Because think about it, how could he consent to take a wife who was pregnant with a child who was not his own? She was thinking this, and we know the big picture, but she didn't know the big picture. She only knew what she had just been told. She had no idea how Joseph was going to respond. She had no idea how her daddy was going to respond. She had no idea how her mother was going to respond. She had to be willing to give up her reputation. Can you imagine the village gossip in a town like Nazareth? It's not a big town, it's much smaller than Savannah. Where people would look at her and they would wonder, who is the father of this child? And no matter what she said, yeah, right Mary, right. The Holy Spirit came upon you and the Holy Spirit made you pregnant? Yes. And how many bridges do you want to sell me? Like that. And to be frank, there would always be somebody, some people in the world who would call her a fornicator and would declare her son to be illegitimate, and that still goes on to this day. I met the teacher female of Hebrew at the Hebrew school here in Savannah, and she actually told me Mary was a fornicator and Jesus was illegitimate. And that Christianity would have died at that time if the Apostle Paul, a renegade rabbi, had not resurrected it and invented all of these wild ideas. And not only would she have trouble with gossip and such things like that, but she would have been subject to the death penalty because Deuteronomy 22 verses 23 and 24 say that if you're a fornicator and you're convicted of fornication, then death is the penalty. And there were other trials as well. And there will be other trials in your life this year as well. In her life, there were the physical pains that went with pregnancy and childbirth. Now, I'm glad I'm not a woman. But I've heard from the girls that this is a tough thing to do. There were also hardships that Mary could not have predicted. Just like you can't predict your hardships for next year. She had to go to Bethlehem while pregnant. She had to be exiled in Egypt. She was hated by Herod. Her child was hated by Herod. But the greatest suffering came when Jesus grew up to be a man and began to fulfill his ministry. Now you've got to think about this. We love Jesus here, so when we think about His ministry, we think about His ministry to us. We think about His goodness to us. We think about His kindness and His care for us. We think about having eternal life that's given to us because He came. But when He came the first time in the flesh, There was so much controversy surrounding Jesus that at one point, even his own family tried to get him to go to another part of the country and to leave the ministry altogether. And if you read Mark chapter three, you could read that right there. They didn't know what to do with Jesus. Nobody did. The Roman soldiers didn't know what to do with Jesus. Caiaphas didn't know what to do with Jesus. Nobody knew what to do with Jesus. He was obviously on a collision course with the Romans, with the religious leaders. He was on a collision course with death. And at the very end of 33 years after he was born, Mary had to endure watching her son be arrested falsely, tried and lied about. She had to watch him be crucified, and she had to watch his body be wrapped up and buried. This is what it meant for Mary to submit to God's will for her life. The question is, What is God's will for your life in the year to come? Her words were, let it be to me according to your word. And she meant it. So how could she be so prepared? How could she be so prepared to say whatever you send my way? I'm ready. I can take it, not because of me, not because how strong I am, but whatever you send my way, I can take it. Well, the answer. in a nutshell, is she knew the Bible. She didn't have a Bible. She didn't own a Bible. Very few people owned the 39 scrolls of the Older Testament. But she knew the Bible. She probably went to synagogue and heard it read, and she practiced her memory. She would remember what was read by the rabbis. And she knew her theology. She probably talked about theology. You know, not just men talk about theology. Women talk about theology too. The girls on Tuesday night in our church, they talk theology. They're not an inch deep and a mile wide. They're a mile deep. And I don't know how wide, but they're a mile deep. Why? because they practice their theology, they learn their theology, and they learn the application of that theology. It's a special event for the ladies of this church, and we do the same thing on a Thursday night. But here is a truly biblical, personal offering of praise to God from this young woman Mary that we find here, in the passage that you have just heard read. This young girl's message is remarkable for its theological content and for the extensive knowledge that she had and the extensive use of the Older Testament. Now, also remember this. Mary was a young girl. Many believe, and I believe, in keeping with the custom of the day, that Mary was somewhere between 13 and 15 years old. She may have been as old as 18, but almost surely she was not older than 18. but somewhere around 13, 14, 15 years old. And she was engaged to be married to Joseph in the near future, and engagements in those days usually would last about a year. And during that time, purity was paramount. And what was amazing about this message from Mary is that it's so filled with so much scripture. And the only way that she could have made this comment that we find in Luke 1, 45 and following, is that she had it memorized. Scripture that she would have had to have taken time and put in effort to self-consciously learn. Now, there are people in the world, in fact, I was watching, I watched Clemson do their thing yesterday. And what was amazing to me was there were guys standing there talking in the pregame. And they were asking questions, and they were naming names, and they were giving statistics from their minds. They were talking about past scores, decades old. They were talking about players and players' speeds in the 40 yards. They were talking about all these kind of things. But I'll bet you if I had stepped up in front of them and said, can anybody here recite John 3.30? I bet you the hush would have come over the whole crowd. They wouldn't have known it. They've memorized what they love. They've learned what they love. And they've ignored what they don't love. And they don't love the scriptures. I'm making that assumption. They're really good at their football stats though. Well, Mary would have had to purposefully learn and think about and make the Scriptures the center of her thoughts so that whatever came her way, she could apply God's truths to her life, especially when there were such momentous events coming her way as what God had just said His providence for her was. Now, again, remember there were only 39 scrolls in the Older Testament. There was no New Testament yet at this time. And like all the people of the day, she did not have her own copy of even those 39 scrolls. Her familiarity with the Word of God came from hearing it regularly spoken and read out loud. But it was in her heart and it was readily in her mind as she opened her mouth in worshipful praise. And I think about, I think about this young Mary. What would it be like if this young Mary, if our little Madison, our little Shor's children could open their mouth like Mary and declare such great theological truths? and know that they're true and rest in their truth and face God and life in those truths. What an amazing thing it would be. What a benefit it would be for this church and every church if the young and even the more mature in age could be so biblically literate and devout. And I believe for the most part that those who take the time to be biblically literate also become devout. And we all usually become pretty good at whatever we're giving our time and our attention to. And Mary clearly was giving her time and attention to the Word of God. Well, Mary's confession of faith is filled with the scripture that prepared her for her future. And Mary's testimony shows that, well, that she meant what she said. Look at verse 46. Mary began in verse 46. My soul exalts the Lord. What's going on here? Why would she say that? Well, she is remembering and she's repeating Psalm 34 too. My soul shall exalt and boast in the Lord. She knew that her reference. Their next reference in verse 47 was to God, her savior. It shows that this very young girl was clearly familiar. with God being the Savior, that she needed saving herself. She talks about God, my Savior, and that that was the teaching of the Older Testament, that there was only one gospel in the Older Testament, and it's the same gospel in the Newer Testament, and that gospel is the gospel that one day Messiah would do all that was necessary for those who would believe and repent of their sins. That's the gospel that she believed and that she talks about in verse 47. We know this because 2 Samuel 22.3 says, the God of my strength and whom I will trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge and my savior. She would have been thinking verses like that. There's plenty more, but I selected that as the most compact one that that repeats what she said in Luke 41-46. Isaiah 43-11 says, besides the Lord, there is no Savior. She knew that she wasn't the Savior. She knew that she needed a Savior, and she calls God her Savior. Isaiah 49-26, she remembered that God said, I, the Lord, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. She even uses that very phrase. And in Hosea 13-4, Think about the comprehensiveness here. She's gone all over the scriptures already. Does anybody here know who Hosea was? Anybody know what he did? Mary, at a young age, knew what Hosea had said, what Hosea did. She knew the life of Hosea. She knew how God had used Hosea. And she says, yet I am the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God but me, and there is no Savior besides me. Then we go to verse 48, where she talks about he has had regard for the humble state of his bondservant. Here, she's repeating Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 1.11. Mary's exclamation, for behold from this time on all generations will count me blessed. Those are Leah's words from Genesis 30 verse 13. She also goes on to declare, for the mighty Lord has done great things for me. This has its roots in Psalm 126.3. And the following statement, which it says, and holy is his name is from Psalm 99.3. And then it says, let them praise your great and awesome name for he is holy, Psalm 111.9. He has sent redemption to His people. He has commanded His covenant forever. She was a covenant theologian. She says so right here in her passage. Holy and awesome is His name. You see, Mary's hymn reveals that she knew her Bible. But she also knew the history of Israel. She knew how to apply the Bible. She spoke in verse 51 of God having done mighty deeds with his arm, including such things. This is not a woman who says, God wants us happy, happy, happy all the time, time, time. This is not a woman who says, I want it soft and sweet all the time. This is a woman who has reality in her mind. Not only has God done mighty deeds with His arm, says verse 51, but that includes, verse 51 also, scattering those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. They needed to be punished, they needed to be scattered, and that was okay with her, and she's declaring it. And then in verse 52, who brings down rulers from their thrones. She understands as Jimmy talks about Psalm 2 and we talk about Psalm 2 a good bit. God is the one who raises up and who tears down kingdoms. And here is the mother Mary as a young girl talking about God tearing down rulers from their thrones. and then exalting the humble in verse 52, and filling the hungry with good things, and sending away the rich empty-handed, verse 53. She understands that whatever happens is by grace, it is not by works. Mary also understood the rich theological necessity of the Abrahamic covenant. Now, when you think Abrahamic covenant, you think, Abrahamic covenant, great. That's the start, that's the end. Maybe. But for her, the Abrahamic covenant was the promise of God to bless all generations and to bless all generations through Messiah. And here she is, the one who's about to give birth to Messiah. And in verses 54 and 55, she declares that God has given help to Israel, his servant, in remembrance of his mercy, in keeping with the promise he made to Abraham and his descendants forever. She trusted God. In fact, one of the hymns that we just sang talks about God doing His works forever without end. Here she understands that God does His works forever without end. So Mary is an example of how the young, and then therefore the old, we can get prepared for anything through the Word. with God behind that Word. And this year, I'm not going to give you resolutions, but there's five things I want you to do with the Word. I want you to hear it. I want you to read it. I want you to study it. I want you to memorize it. And I want you to meditate on it. And as you hear it, read it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on it, something's going to happen in your life. You're going to Trust. You're going to trust God, and you're going to be able to better trust your own decisions. Why? Because as you hear, read, study, memorize, and meditate on the Scriptures, you are going to be transformed. You're going to be made wiser. You're going to learn how to respond and react to the things that are going on around you. You're going to learn how to understand how God is working His purpose out in the affairs of men. You need to hear, read, study, memorize, and meditate the Scripture so you can trust it, and you need to live it out as though it matters. And why would you want to live it out as though it matters? Because it matters. It really does matter. And Mary was such a humble person that she exclaims here, he has regard for the humble state of his bondservant. She's amazed. She's filled with wonderment that God would use such a person as her and bless her with such a great deed. But she understands that she is a slave. She's made full circle. And why? Because a slave serves. Are you going to serve in 2020? A slave listens to his master. Are you going to be listening to your master in 2020? A slave seeks to please his master. Are you going to seek to please your master in 2020? A slave mentality forms a fitting conclusion to Mary's hymn of praise. We happen to be people who can praise our slave owner. You know, I think about, I'm gonna make a New Testament application here in Ephesians 5. In Ephesians 5, women are commanded to submit to their husbands. Now, then men are commanded to treat their wives as Christ's. loves the church or love their wives as Christ love the church. How hard do you think it is for a wife to submit to her husband who has a husband who looks like Christ? Is it tough or is it easy? The more a man is like Christ, the more the woman wants to submit to him. And here, the more Mary knew about the greatness of God through His Word, the more she wanted to submit to Him. The more she wanted to follow Him. The more she wanted to serve Him. And in Ephesians 5, basically, I'll paraphrase here. I can recite it, as you know I can. But it says, Guys, do yourself a favor and love your wife. Mary, do yourself a favor. and serve God and do it in love and joy. Do yourself a favor and love your wife. Do yourself a favor and love and serve God. That slave mentality is the way we need to think about ourselves in the coming year. And I believe that if we were to think of ourselves in that way and act on it, we few, we noble few, We could change the world. We've got as many people in this room as Jesus had after Jesus left. And he changed the world. There's a professor named Bart Ehrman. If you ever hear the name, run. Not right now, but after today. He's a PhD in New Testament. He got his PhD from Princeton. He taught at Princeton. So he's a smart guy for a few years. Then he went to, he got the chair of New Testament at UNC Chapel Hill. He's very smart. He's very wimpsome and he's very evil. And he tells a story about going to class on the first day of class. And he gathers his students, and he's one of the most popular of all the professors, so he has his classes in lecture halls rather than small classrooms where only 40 or 50 people can be. And he asked the people, he'll say, he says, class, by show of hands, how many of you believe that the Bible is God's perfectly inspired message to you and to all mankind? And he says, that almost invariably every hand will go up. There'll be one or two that won't, but almost invariably, almost every hand will go up. And then he will say, how many of you have read the Bible all the way through within the past year? And out of in his classes, there's 100 to 200 people. He says there might be two. And he says, you see class, these people who claim to be Christians, and claim to have a book that God wrote, don't even care enough to read the book that God wrote. So do they really believe it? He embarrasses the two or three that claim to be Christians. Then he'll ask the question, how many of you have read the Da Vinci Code? Every hand goes up! And he says, is the Da Vinci Code inspired? Nobody claims it's inspired. Yeah, they claim the Bible's inspired, and yet the class has read the Da Vinci Code. They can quote the Da Vinci Code, but they can't quote the Bible. They don't do Bible study. They're neglecting the very Word of God. So this year, coming 2020, I want to ask you to be engaged with this church. You can be engaged with any church you want to be engaged with, but to scatter your resources, to scatter your mind, to have a tossed salad approach to Christianity is really not going to do you much good, and it's going to do this congregation almost no good. Be engaged. this year with this church and make this church a success. And the way you make this church a success is by hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, meditating on, trusting the scriptures and living it out here because it matters. Amen? Amen. Please prepare yourselves to receive the last Lord's Supper of 2019.