is from the Gospel of Luke, continuing in this account of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Luke chapter 1, beginning in verse 39. In those days Mary arose, and she 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 amongst 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 believes 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 upon 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, and he has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. And 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 empty away. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. And he spoke to our fathers, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. And Mary remained with her three months and returned to her home." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, ask that you bless the reading of your word. And Father, as we reflect upon these words, I pray that you would use this word to build us up in our faith, mature us, grow us, that we might indeed be your people, strong and mature in this community. I pray that if there are those here who do not know you, I pray that you would use these words to call them to faith, and use our faith to call others to faith as well. Ultimately, Father, in the end, we pray that you would be glorified and honored, that you would be praised and proclaimed through the words that I bring, or in spite of them. We pray that you are honored. In Jesus' name, amen. Have you ever noticed when you're reading the Bible just how many songs the Bible contains? One of the reasons I've got good friends that are exclusive psalmody covenants or types. We live in Geneva, Geneva College areas and a number of you are familiar with that world. But one of the reasons that I kind of don't agree with that mindset is just simply the fact that as you go through the scriptures, you see song after song after song outside of the songs that God inspires his people to write and to sing at certain times in their life, at certain events, or in response to certain events that they take, both songs of joy and songs of sorrow. As I was thinking about that, I was realizing that I think that's a pretty natural thing for us to do, or at least a natural response for us. I'm kind of in a transition generation. I'm old enough to remember, at least when I was a kid, that every family movie that you would watch had to have song and dance routines in it. You know, you'd be doing this, everybody would be dramatizing this and that, and then all of a sudden everybody breaks into song. I remember that. It seemed like every Disney movie that was ever made for a certain era was structured exactly in that way. But I also remember a transition where you move into, and I don't know kind of where that transition took place, but you move into Star Wars maybe, you know, and no more songs and dances. I'm of that age where I kind of was thankful on a certain level for that. Not that I'm knocking songs and dances, but again, some of that is perhaps generational. I remember a time when I was at home in my teenage years, and my sister was watching West Side Story. And I remember walking through. I didn't stay and sit and watch with her. I just remember walking through. And there was this point where these gangs or something were getting ready to get into this knife fight. And they're getting ready to fight with one another. And then they start singing and dancing. And I'm going, oh yeah, that's realistic. And that's a musical, and I know that's a musical, and I'm not knocking musicals. Actually, I like musicals very much. For those of you who know something about musicals, Into the Woods is my all-time favorite of all the musicals that I have seen, though I'm sure that this one tonight is going to be one of my favorites somewhere, you know, in the equation of things. Count that as a plug. Count that as a plug. Come out tonight, support the kids, encourage them in what they're doing, and be blessed in that. But as I was reading the passage and rereading the passage, as I was preparing to write the sermon for this morning, It struck me that Mary's response is not as strange as we might think it might be. Because here is good news given to her and what does she do under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? She begins singing. Now some of us may go, okay, that's, but you know, if you really think about it, that's not that strange of a thing to do. In fact, it's arguably a pretty natural thing to do. Have you ever given a little child a task and then kind of step back and watch them while they're busy doing whatever that task is? Oftentimes the children just kind of start singing to themselves as they're doing, completely oblivious as to whether, or not really caring, whether anybody around them is watching or caring whether they're singing. Sometimes I fear that the way we approach school beats that out of our kids. I get the reality that, can you imagine what it would be like if you had 35 kids in a classroom all singing their own song? Poor teachers might be getting stuck in a Sedron or something along those lines just to make it through the day. I think it's a very, very natural thing to do. kind of look at this, and look at this song that Mary sings, spontaneously, Mary sings in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I want us to recognize that that sets a model for us as well. That even as adults I mean, it's a good thing for us to sing. It's something that God has mandated for our worship of Him, not just when we gather here in church, but everywhere. And so my encouragement is sing. Sometimes people are uncomfortable singing in groups of people in church or something like that. I have a friend of mine who says, isn't it interesting that the same people will be kind of quiet in a church, but If they go into a bar or something like that, they'll sing with gusto. Or if they're driving their car down the road and they're the only one in the car, they'll sing to the radio with gusto or in the shower and things along those lines. There's plenty of places where we're happy to sing. Let us be happy to sing to the glory of God as we gather, but also in your private worship. You know, ask yourself what it is that I'm singing, perhaps, and then build into your psyche songs that will praise God that you can sing as you go through all of life. So that's what Mary does. And again, that's what many of the people in God's Word do. So why don't we? Now Mary, after getting the news then that she is pregnant and hearing the news about Elizabeth, she begins to make a trip. And I think in the day of automobiles and airplanes and transportation like we have it, we don't really appreciate the trip that Mary is about to take there. Depending on, we're not exactly told where it is Elizabeth lives in Judah, Judea, the region there, but we know where that region is. So depending on where she lives within that region, it was about a 70 to a 90 mile trip, travel, or trip for her to take from Nazareth, where she lived, all the way down to see, you know, her relative Elizabeth. Now, in those days, to make a trip like that, you had to find a caravan to go with, just for your own personal safety. There were brigands along the road, there were dangerous spots that you, if you were to try and travel alone, just simply would not be safe. You would also have to either walk on one hand, how many of us would want to, or choose to walk to West Virginia from here, but walk on one hand, or provide your own donkey to ride on, on the other hand. how many of us would want to ride on the back of a donkey to West Virginia from here. This was not an easy trip for her to take. What's interesting to me, though, is depending on where it is that Elizabeth really lived, Mary, as she traveled to visit Elizabeth, probably would not have gone too far from Bethlehem, very well may have stopped a night in Bethlehem to spend the night just so you would have safety and a place to eat before you moved on and made the rest of your trip. That means you could look at this first trip as a bit of a dry run for the trip that she would make nine months later just prior to the birth of her son. Of course at that point she was very pregnant and so the challenges were just multiplied in that sense as well. So Mary arrives at the house of Zechariah. She meets up with Elizabeth, his wife. We're told that it's in the hill country of Judah. And something wonderful happens. As she walks in the door, The baby, who's now six months mature, within Elizabeth's belly, leaps for joy at the presence of the baby in Mary's belly, who at this point is a fetus only about two weeks old. Now, I want you to wrap your heads around that, because there's two applications that I want to draw from just that experience. First of all, if anyone has ever doubted the Bible's stance on whether abortion is the taking of a human life, or at what stage the Bible considers the development of a fetus a baby, well, I think you can simply go right here and answer that question in a very decisive and plain way. Here is the fetus of Jesus at about two weeks old. being referred to as My Lord by Elizabeth, and also again being one who receives worship on the part of John the Baptist, who is a fetus in his mama's womb. The death of a child is the death of a child, whether the child is inside the womb or outside the womb from conception on. Bible is very clear on the role of abortion, that it is sin and it is a breaking of the sixth commandment. This is just one of those many spots, but a very plain illustration that we need to keep in mind before we get in or as we get into some of those conversations as a society. The second application I'd like to draw is this. Some of our Baptist friends will challenge us in terms of why we baptize our babies. Of course, they view baptism as something you do in response to regeneration, in response to faith in the life of the child. And they say that infants can't have faith because they're infants. They're not old enough to mature or mature enough to understand sin and grace and things like that. Well, here we have in the Bible an infant who had faith, because it requires faith to worship. John the Baptist, at six months in the womb, was regenerate. Now, I understand that John the Baptist is a little bit of a special case here, but if it's possible that God regenerated John in the womb, then it's possible that God has regenerated others in the womb as well. Now, we ordinarily baptize on the profession of faith of the parents. But again, we have an example here of a regenerated infant in the womb. It's gonna sound kind of strange, but born again before he was born in the first place. Wrap your heads around that for just a minute. So Elizabeth blesses Mary. not because she's Mary's real special, but because Mary's the mother of Christ. And she blesses Jesus because Jesus is the Christ. And she blesses Mary again because Mary believed that the things that God said that he would do were done. And Mary responds with a kind of song. In traditional church liturgy, this song is called the Magnificat. Literally, it's just a Latin phrase, which means the praises. There's a lot of things that we could talk about from this song. We could talk about some of the Old Testament prophecies and language that are fulfilled in this. We could talk about using this song as an example for the hymns that we sing. in terms of what makes a hymn good or what makes a hymn bad, or a praise song good or a praise song bad, and things along those lines. But what I really wanna do this morning is talk to you a little bit about the main theme of this song, which is God's actions, God's working in the lives of his people. And there's six things, six actions that it speaks about God doing as Mary sings her song. But let me just say that. As we sing our praise songs, as we sing our songs, one of the lessons that we can take away is just this. Whose work is our worship primarily about? Is it about us and the things that we're doing? Is it about us and the things that we're taking away? Is it about our feeling? And I would say, no, it's not the answer to the question. I would say if you survey the songs that we have in the Bible, even outside of the Psalms, you will find that the main themes are always around God, His work, His glory, His plan, His design, and His provision for us, His people. It's all about God and not about us. So we have some themes that we find, or we have a theme that we find worked out in six ways in terms of God's actions. The first of the ways, kind of you find falling in between verse 46 and 48. She says, my soul magnifies, you can translate that, boasts in, or makes much of the Lord. And my spirit exalts, is overjoyed, is glad in God my Savior. For He has looked, notice the word look, He has looked, gazed upon, or shown His care and affection in a certain direction. For those of you who are used to kind of old language of God turning his face in that direction, it's the same kind of language that we find here in the Greek as that is in the Hebrew in the Old Testament. So he's looked upon the lowliness or the humiliation or the humble state. of His servant, His slave. God is a God who looks upon His people. God is a God who sees. That doesn't say that He doesn't see what else is going on in the world. But God is a God who pays special attention to the lives of His own. Scripture is filled with references to Him paying special care. Even in the Old Testament, it's called El-Rayi, God who sees. God who sees what's going on. Now, for some people, for some Christians, I begin to worry or wonder, as I was thinking about this, this might seem like a bit of a mixed blessing, kind of a double-edged sword. Because sometimes people say, I sure hope God doesn't see what I'm doing right now, when they're pursuing sin of one sense or another. And they don't like the notion that God might see them in their sin. My mother used to say to me, when? If you don't want it in the headlines of the newspaper tomorrow morning, it's probably not a good idea to do in the first place. God sees. I remember a preacher once saying, it made an impression on me a number of years ago, he used to say that I ask myself, if Jesus were to return again right now, would I want him to find me doing what I'm doing right now? And that made a big impression on me when I was younger. But as I was thinking about this, I realized, you know what? It doesn't matter whether Jesus is coming now or in 10,000 years. He sees what I'm doing right now and is either pleased or displeased by my actions. So we need to take all of our actions seriously and with that kind of care as Christians. The blessing, though, the good side of this, though, for the believer, is that we never need to feel like we're alone. We never need to feel like we've been abandoned. We never need to feel like there's no one that we can talk to, speak to, or who knows what we're going through at this point in time. Christmas in our society is a time where people who struggle with things like depression really have a hard time because they look around them and they see everybody happy and bright and shiny and everything along those lines, and they reflect upon their own condition and feel lost and separate and left out. But you know what, if we have a right theology about the character of God, if we're thinking about God properly, biblically, that as a Christian we never need to feel like we're in that position because God is there with us God's Holy Spirit is there comforting us and ministering to us in everything that we're going through so we're not alone and we're not abandoned or left behind by maybe by humans but not by God because He indeed sees There are many people in our society who cry out to gods that are blind, deaf, and dumb and cannot answer their prayers either. My friend Todd, who some of you met when he was visiting with us, spent a couple weeks in China as part of a Kung Fu competition trip a number of years back. And as part of that, they gave all the Kung Fu guys a tour of one of the Buddhist temples. And for the first time in his life, he kind of had heard stories about it and read the Bible on people worshiping idols of metal and stone and things like that. For the first time, he came face to face with it and actually saw it. And what struck him was the absolute desperation on the faces of the people as they were bowing to something that could not answer and could not respond to them. He came back heartbroken. But you know what? You don't need the little Buddha in the corner to be bowing down to something that can't respond. As Americans, there are many things that we bow down before. Anything we sometimes say that gets in the way of you and your relationship with Jesus Christ becomes an idol in your life, whatever it is. It may be activities that you do. It may be family. It may be work. It may be wealth. It could be a lot of different things. And though we may not physically prostrate ourselves before those things by our actions, we do essentially exactly that. They can't answer our prayers. They cannot respond to our needs and they cannot come and minister to us in this world. Beloved, we serve a God who sees. And even when we're facing a time of persecution, we serve a God who promises to be aware of those who persecute his people and who will bring vengeance against the wicked, the wicked who persecute us. Secondly, Mary sings about God, for he is the one who is mighty and who has done great things. What are the great things that he speaks about? That's the end of verse 48. She says, 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. The great thing that he has done for her is the sending of the Messiah. How important that is for us. How everything in our life rests on the fact that we have a Messiah. We have a King who has redeemed us from our sins. He is the one that gives us hope in this world. He is the one that gives us life in this world that has any meaning whatsoever. Apart from Christ, there is nothing. But one of the great things about this promise is it's not just for Mary. She goes on to say, it's for the generations and the generations, for all who fear Him. And that language should sound a little bit familiar because it's an allusion to the language of the Second Commandment and the Ten Commandments, where God promises to show His steadfast love, His covenant faithfulness there to those who will love Me and keep My commandments for the generations. Not to all. but for the generations of those who love and obey the two things that we do that flow out of our reverence, our fear of the Lord. Thirdly, He has shown strength. It's verse 51. He has shown His strength with His arm. He has shattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. Again, God turns His power against those who will rail against Him. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Paul cites Deuteronomy 32-35 when he is writing the book of Romans in Romans 12-19. His power is strong and He will cause the proud to be dropped to their knees. And if you doubt that He does this, ask Haman. Ask Haman back from the Book of Esther. 4. Much like the prior one, Mary repeats this idea for emphasis, saying that He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. Christ says that in His kingdom the last shall be first, and the servant is elevated above the master. If your aim in life is to become master over men, you will be lowly and despised in Christ's kingdom. But if your aim is to humbly be a servant, serving men as you serve Christ, then you will be lifted up out of your humiliation. For most civilizations in history, that is a bizarre concept that is totally counter-cultural. with few exceptions. One of those being the founding of our United States, at least as it was originally meant to be. I think Abraham Lincoln summarizes this the best when he speaks about our government as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Not for the elite, not for the rich, not for the ruling class. That's how most governments are structured. but for the people, which is why, by the way, in our republic, government officials are referred to as civil servants, with an emphasis on servants. You can hear, you should hear, the Christian emphasis, the overtones there in even that language. The challenge is, the difficulty in the practice is, is to practice that consistently on every level of our government. So for what it's worth, Elder, you've got some work to do in reforming the people that you work with. And just leave that at that. Fifth, He has filled the hungry. He has filled the hungry with good things, this is verse 53, and the rich He has sent away empty. Hunger is one of the most powerful drivers, you know, to be an incentive for us to do X, Y, or Z. That's why we oftentimes, what do we do with kids? We reward them by giving them candy, you know, for good things that they've done. It may also be one of the reasons why in America where Food is so prevalent and so accessible to us that things like fasting are so difficult to us. In many of the other parts of the world where food is in such abundance, fasting is very much a normal part of the life of the Christian. And it should be. It's not something we're to brag about. It's not something we're to boast about. It's not something we're to talk about. Jesus is very clear that when we do fast, we're not supposed to tell anybody we're doing it. But we're to do it in a context of prayer. Americans, my experience is, is that we really struggle with that, doing that, because food is so prevalent. But physical hunger is not the only kind of hunger that we experience. And sadly, oftentimes, the other kind of hunger that we experience is one that we don't pay attention to as much, because perhaps that kind of food is not as abundant or we don't think of it as being abundant. There is also a language of spiritual hunger, hungering for the things of God, hungering for the righteousness that God calls us as his people to live out, hungering for the kind of satisfaction that can only come from a relationship, a deep relationship with Jesus Christ. St. Augustine would describe this as being a God-shaped hole that He has placed in each of us. C.S. Lewis would take that analogy and adapt it a little bit and says that we're all a key and every key is unique and different and distinct and we are designed to fit a certain spot in God that we would be fulfilled in Him and we find our meaning in Him and not in the things of this world. God promises that for His people, He will do that. Jeremiah 31, 25, God says to the prophet Jeremiah, for I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish. That's the language of the 23rd Psalm. He renews and restores my soul. We need that restoration. We need that fullness. Jesus himself says, blessed is the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. That's Matthew 5, 6. My fear then is that we as a society have become perhaps so jaded. The Bibles are everywhere. We give them out. You can get 47 bazillion different translations at the Bible bookstore that are available, not translation. It's a good and a wonderful thing that we've been given that gift, but if we just leave the Bible on a shelf or don't pay attention to it, don't read it, don't study it, what good is it going to do us? It's just going to become one of those idols that we bow down to that can do nothing for us. And thus, we oftentimes are not interested in being hungry for the things of righteousness that Christ provides and offers through His Word. Those who are rich, she says, Mary says, will go away hungry. One of the most difficult things to do is to teach somebody who thinks they know it all. They're not going to listen to a word that you say because they know it all, whether they know it or not. As a society, I fear that we have become a society of know-it-alls, whether we know it or not, and don't want to be taught. 6 He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever." Who are Abraham's offspring? Galatians 3.29. That's believers. That's Christians. That's who are in Christ through faith. God has helped whom? His servant Israel. But who are they? The seed of Abraham. And who is the seed of Abraham? Christians. That's you and me. And how has He helped us? Through His mercy. Because that is all. All that we can fall upon is His mercy. We have done nothing to earn it otherwise. and fulfillment of promises after many years and many generations fulfill not just national people in one location, but to all who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That's to you and to me, regardless of whether we are Jew or Greek. Now, there's a lot of this. We look at this song that Mary is singing. And again, I want to emphasize the fact that this song is primarily focused upon the work of God. Not on who Mary is, not on what she's doing, but on what God is doing, not even through her, but through the child that she would bear. Vaughan Time said that we need to pay attention to what we sing, what we say, what we do, and make sure it's in conformity with the scriptures. What a good model this is for us as we examine those things. So Luke closes the section by pointing out that Mary spends three months with Martha. If you kind of do the math, Martha was six months, now she's nine months. So she is staying basically till, not Martha, golly, Elizabeth comes to term. And functioning, arguably, serving as Elizabeth's nurse as she gives birth. At that point, after the birth of John, she's three months pregnant and she herself begins in her return home. But I would argue still returning home with a song in her heart as she travels, as she gets ready to anticipate what God was going to do with this child that she is bearing. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you and we ask your grace upon us. for we have oftentimes fallen very short of what you've called us to do and to be. I pray that you would indeed motivate us, push us, humble us where we need to be humbled, and glorify your name in us so that we would indeed live lives marked as Christian. We praise you, Father, and pray all of this in Jesus's name, for you are a great God.