The Song Of a Satisfied Soul

So thank you for that.

I was awake about 3 30 in the morning for just a little while, and I uh I checked the uh uh weather channel, and uh if I remember it right, it was minus 21 degrees actual temperature and minus 43 degrees uh wind chill, and I thought, I'm here, I'm really here.

We love it.

We love you too.

We love this church and the opportunity to uh to serve here.

For the last several weeks um we have been looking at several different psalms.

Um the psalms are songs, really.

Uh we looked at uh Psalm 131, we called it the humble soul.

The psalms reveal to us what's going on in the heart and the soul of the psalmist.

We saw Psalm 121, the keeper of my soul.

And boy, do we need a keeper.

Do we need a protector, we need a guardian and a guide, and we have that in our God.

We saw Psalm 130 last week, the psalm that waits, the soul that waits, rather.

And we spend an awful lot of our time waiting.

And there's some wonderful lessons to be learned in that process.

This morning I want us to look at a psalm, but it's not in the book of Psalms.

You realize, of course, that not all of the psalms in the Bible are in the Psalter or the Book of Psalms.

150 of them are, but there's several in the Old Testament and several in the New Testament that we don't really call them Psalms, but they are.

Uh Moses uh only wrote one of the 150 Psalms in the Bible, but he wrote two other Psalms, one that's in uh Exodus and one that is in Deuteronomy.

And in the New Testament, we actually find several psalms.

And I am uh wanting us to spend some time today thinking of what we know of as the Magnificats, and we'll talk about that.

But basically, it's a psalm, it's a song, it's a response on Mary's part to what God was doing in her life.

And it's very helpful, very instructive for us.

The word psalm, the English word psalm, is really just a transliteration from the Greek word psalmos that is used as the description of the book of Psalms, which in and of itself is simply a translation of the Hebrew mismor, which simply means song.

These are songs, these are poetic, figurative expressions that allow us to see what's going on in the heart and the soul of some of God's people.

There's all kinds of things going on inside of us.

Some of us were uncomfortable with the things that are going on inside of us.

But God is at work in people's lives, even when they don't yet know him as Savior.

When I think back, I realize that God was at work in my life in the year or two prior to me finally understanding the gospel and making a commitment to him.

He was probably involved from my birth, drawing me to himself, and he continues that process.

God is at work in our midst.

And it's important for us to be able to share with one another some of what God is doing, and that's what the writers of the book of Psalms do.

The curtain gets pulled back just a little bit, and we get the glimpse in.

And we see them when they're frustrated or angry or confused or joyful or whatever.

And there's all of those things within us as well.

The Psalms were written by human authors, but under the inspiration of the scriptures, uh 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 21, holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1:21

No word from God only comes from the human author, but God so superintends the process that what we have in the scriptures, whether the writers at the time even knew that or not, is the very message, the very words which God wanted us to have as well and throughout the ages.

So what we have this morning before us is the magnificat, or the that's that's that's taken from the first word, and we'll turn to it in a minute, but the first word of Mary's response to what God was doing in her, literally in her, but also in her heart and in her spirit.

And so the magnificat is taken from the first word of that in the Latin Vulgar translation, which throughout the Middle Ages was the primary Bible.

Mary's song, the Magnificat, has captured, if we would let it, it will capture you, I pray, as a beautiful, powerful expression of someone who is content with who God is and what he's doing.

Um it's captured the sensitive minds and hearts of artists and musicians throughout the centuries.

Uh if you were to just do a Google search on the Magnificat and look for artwork, there's hundreds of beautiful paintings of what we're going to be looking at.

And certainly some of the highest points of our rich musical heritage go back to this.

I think of Johann Sebastian's Bach's Magnificat in D minor for symphony and uh choir.

I was really tempted to take the next six and a half minutes and just play one of the most breathtaking performances of the Magnificat.

But then I figure you'd be so captured without you wouldn't want to hear me anymore.

So uh but just beautiful.

This has moved.

What we're looking at this morning has moved people spiritually, emotionally, aesthetically throughout the millennia.

And it's definitely worth us uh taking a look at.

I trust you are you you you appreciate the Psalms.

I spent a number of years in my early Christian experience really kind of ignoring the Psalms.

They didn't seem to speak to me particularly much.

Poor me.

If the Psalms don't speak to you, I would say don't just stay there.

Allow them to speak.

Because God has written the Psalms that we might feed and nurture the life of our soul.

That's really what they're for.

And Mary's Psalm is certainly one of those.

Let me ask you to turn to Luke chapter 1.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

I want to read two portions.

Uh I want to put the major focus on verses 46 to 55, Mary's response.

But I'd also like to read and just say a couple of things briefly about what she was responding to, and that was the announcement that the angel Gabriel had for her.

And so we're reading in Luke chapter 1, verse 26 to 38, for what Gabriel said, and then we'll look at verse 44 to 50, 46 to 55, Mary's personal response to that.

Luke 1:26–38

Verse 26.

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David.

And the virgin's name was Mary.

He, that is Gabriel, came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.

But Mary was greatly troubled at this saying, and tried to discern what sort of a greeting this might be.

You see, even as the angel is speaking, Mary's responding on the inside.

And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High.

And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

Now Mary's continuing to process this, and she said, Now, how will this be?

For I've known no man.

How will this be?

As it's translated here, I am a virgin.

And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived of son, and this is the sixth month with her whom was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God.

And Mary's continuing to listen and respond in her responses, Behold, I'm the servant of the Lord.

Let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed.

Mary then visited her cousin Elizabeth, who would bear the forerunner of Christ, John the Baptist.

And Mary's reflecting this whole time on these strange, unexpected, amazing words which were spoken about what God was doing in her and through her.

So verse 46 to 55, this is her response.

I don't know if this is what she said at the time or captured, it was captured later, or exactly how that happened.

But this is this woman wrestling with and coming to peace, being satisfied with the God who was doing in her something quite extraordinary.

It is the song of a satisfied soul, a soul that is satisfied with God and in God and with what God does.

Do we know how to sing this song of a satisfied soul?

So this is what Mary said.

And I won't sing it for you, by the way.

My soul magnifies the Lord.

First word in the Latin is magnified the Lord my soul.

Sounds like Yoda speaking.

Star Wars, magnified the Lord, my soul.

Just Latin uh sequence.

But my soul, says Mary, magnifies, makes the Lord great.

And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant, me.

He's looked at the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all the generations will call me blessed.

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 shattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of humble estate like me.

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.

And as he spoke to the fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever.

Let's pray, shall we?

Heavenly Father, what grace you have given us to have captured for us the response of this young teenage girl who was confronted with an astounding, for us all but unbelievable reality that you were doing something that no one would have expected.

And we get to listen in, we get to learn, we get to allow our souls to see you as she saw you.

Lord, may you satisfy us in the morning.

May we find in you all that we need.

We are most satisfied in you as we glorify you, and we glorify you as we are most satisfied in you.

So Lord, may we learn, after the pattern of Mary, to sing a song, a psalm as a satisfied soul.

If that happens, if that happens, it will be because you're doing amazing things.

So we ask you, Father, do amazing things in our lives, in our hearts, in our souls.

I pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

I want to look at Mary's response, and part of her response, as I indicated, was not just in the Magnificat, but was in the announcement that Gabriel gave.

As he was speaking to her, something was stirring and bubbling in her heart.

So let's just very briefly look at what we has traditionally been called the annunciation.

Parenthetically, that doesn't mean it's pronounced properly.

That would be enunciation.

This is enunciation, and that means announcement, the announcement, a clear announcement.

A mighty message announced by Gabriel from God to this simple young woman in this backwater town, in this backwater country, nothing impressive, but God, who was doing some amazing things.

So the inner response.

Look for a moment at verses 28 and 29.

Verse 28 and 29.

Gabriel said, Greetings, O favored One, the Lord is with you.

What?

She was greatly troubled by this saying and tried to discern what kind of a greeting that might be.

This was not easy for her to get her mind around.

She didn't understand what God was doing.

Huh.

So do you understand what God is doing?

Do I?

Well, we we get some glimpses, we can we can touch around the edges and send some things, but we don't get God.

We don't figure him out.

God is always more and bigger, and we are never going to completely understand his ways.

That's not our calling.

She did, and this was a reflection of where she landed.

She was glorifying God even without understanding what in the world he was up to.

As evangelicals, we sometimes have problems with these passages that we're looking at because, particularly in the medieval church, but also continuing to our day, there is an maybe an over-emphasis on some parts of what's going on here.

As though Mary herself was someone special.

The way she talks about herself in here, she knows that she is nothing special, no more special than you or I are.

What she's impressed with is God.

Unfortunately, throughout the centuries, in a no doubt well-intentioned attempt to exalt Christ, to cause him to be seen as high and lifted up, the picture of Christ, particularly in the Middle Ages, that was painted was of a distant and austere Savior, difficult to relate to.

And so Mary was seized upon in a sense as someone who is kind of like us, just simple, and this warm mother figure.

And this became a way for people, as it were, to feel like they could get close to God through Mary.

And yet what Mary is saying is, I don't understand, God, what you're doing here.

And in a sense, we should distance ourselves from this veneration of Mary.

Mary is not the exalted one.

God is the exalted one throughout all of this.

So it seems like in some traditions Mary is made into this huge deal, but we're uncomfortable with Mary because it sounds like she's this huge deal.

And so, on the one hand, it gets overemphasized, and in our circles, I think the Anunciation and Magnificat get underemphasized.

But Mary was a woman who was simply amazed at what God was doing.

She began by being very troubled by it.

Verse 29.

She was greatly troubled at what Gabriel was saying.

The New Living Translation says she was confused and disturbed by it.

Are you ever confused and disturbed by things that God is doing?

I sure am.

Oh well.

God's big and we're little.

And as it says in the New American Standard Bible, she's perplexed.

Mary didn't understand God's ways in her life.

Huh.

Interesting.

What makes us think that we're supposed to understand everything there is about God?

There is a powerful drive within fallen humanity to want to figure God out.

It's not inherently wrong to want to pursue and understand what we can of God.

In fact, that's a good thing.

But it goes quickly beyond that.

Like God has to make sense.

What God's doing has to make sense.

Otherwise, I got a problem, and I got a problem with him.

Well, oh well.

Since when are we going to figure out God?

That's not our destiny.

That's not what we're called to.

We're called to worship and obey.

C.S.

Lewis, the uh fifth of the gospel writers, and as if you listen to me long enough, C.

S.

Lewis, I quote him all the time, you'd think it was Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and C.S.

C.

S.

Lewis rightly said, talking about the man's freedom and the human drive to think that we're free, the limitation of our freedom, and yet our need to be free.

He says, I was not born to be free, but to adore and to obey.

And I would say that there's something about that that is reflected in Mary's response.

We're not born to figure God out.

That's not our goal.

We were created to worship God and be awed by God and to be small and for God to be big.

And when we try to get our mind around God, we are arrogant fools.

When we try to get God worked into our outline, when we understand all of his attributes, we may understand the words we don't understand.

God is infinitely.

Beyond us.

He has come near in Christ.

But we don't.

God does some pretty bizarre things.

Have you ever noticed that?

Things that don't fit in with our thinking.

God does some things in your life that don't fit in with what you think is right.

Well, that's what Mary was saying.

But my friends, a soul that is satisfied with God doesn't have to have God all figured out.

In fact, our satisfaction can come in simply trusting who he is and that he's good.

He is God is great and God is good, and we thank him for our food.

There's hardly anything more profound than that.

We trust him.

He's bigger than we are.

We receive.

Is he a tame lion?

And Lucy's brilliant response was, safe?

No, but he's good.

In other words, if we can tame him, then we have control over him.

And the effort to get God all figured out is a futile effort to try to be as big or bigger than God is.

And that is not your place.

That's not my place.

Yet there's something in my stubborn heart that wants to get it all worked out.

The soul that is satisfied with God does not have God all figured out.

We need to learn to sing the psalm of a soul that is satisfied.

It's interesting the progression of Mary's thoughts.

Verse 29, troubled and wondering what's going on.

Verse 30, there's a sense of fear expressed or awe.

When we encounter the God who is, throughout the scriptures, those who encountered God didn't encounter their best buddy.

They fell on their face.

And they were aware of their sin and their weakness.

And she experienced some of this in listening to Gabriel.

Verse 34, she was confused.

And then verse 38.

I love this.

Verse 38.

Okay, here I am, God.

Have your way with me.

Behold, I'm just the bondservant of the Lord.

Let it be to me according to your word.

In other words, just, all right, God, have your way.

Do your thing.

I'll just, I'll just go with the flow.

That's kind of the last thought here from my perspective relative to the annunciation.

Trusting submission is always the right response to the God of glory.

I don't understand it.

I'm confused.

I'm disturbed by it.

But I trust you, Lord, and I bow before you in submission.

Have your way in my life.

Can we only allow God to have his way in our lives when we understand what he's doing and happen to agree with it?

How arrogant, how foolish.

There's no deep satisfaction of soul with that.

The satisfaction of soul is coming to peace with a God who is great and beyond our completely finding out and just trusting him.

You have areas of your life.

I know a little bit about what's going on in some of your lives.

For most of you, it's very superficial.

For some of you, I don't know anything really.

But I can assure you there's things going on in your life that you need to just trust him for that may hurt, that may make no sense, that don't seem right.

But the song of a satisfied soul learns to say, okay, Lord, I'm just this little servant.

You do what you want.

I'm good with that, Lord.

Are you good with what God is seeking to do in your life?

Let's uh move on here.

The Magnificat is, verses 46 to 55, is simply a response in Mary's heart to what God through the angel Gabriel said to her and what God is doing within her.

It's simply her response.

You see, when God reveals Himself, we're to respond.

Those of you who grew up in Roman Catholic, high Lutheran, or high Episcopalian or liturgical circles will probably be familiar with these terms: the magnificat, the Benedictus, the Gloria, and the Nuc Demitis.

These are four responses to what God is doing that we find in Luke chapter 1 and chapter 2.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

The Magnificat is Mary's response.

The Benedictus is Zachariah's response.

He was the father of John the Baptist.

And so his first words were, Blessed be the Lord, Benedictus, again using the Latin translation.

The angelic hosts in chapter 2, verse 14, responding, Glory to God.

See, when God reveals himself, there's always a response by his creatures and by his creation.

And then the Nuncatimitus, that was elderly Simeon.

A few days later, when Mary and Joseph took baby Jesus to the temple for the ceremony of purification, they came across an elderly man who had received a promise from God, his name was Simeon, that he would see the Messiah before he died.

And he saw the Messiah and he said, Nunc Dimitis, now I may depart.

And it was a sign, it was an expression of great joy, and it was a response, finally, O Lord, I see what you're doing in this regard, and now I get to move on.

But the pattern is what I could care less about, the Latin terms.

What I care about is the pattern that is here.

When God reveals Himself, there's to be a response.

Are we responding?

You don't have to respond to me.

Are you responding to God?

Are we a church that responds to God?

Are we a people?

Are we individuals who when God says something, when God does something, we respond.

And our response is one of praise and worship and submission and adoration.

If we sing the song of the satisfied soul.

I guess what I want to say is.

And these are the things that God, through his spirit and through his word, wants to do within us.

Four simple responses on Mary's part.

A satisfied soul, and that's Mary, came to see God in this way.

First of all, she saw God as the mighty one who does great things for little people.

Verse 48 and 49.

For he has looked on the humble estate of this servant.

He has looked on me, my humble estate, and from now on all generations will call me blessed.

For he who is mighty has done great things for me.

Holy is his name.

Mary's response was to be overwhelmed with the power and majesty of God.

He is big and he is powerful, and I'm small, and I am weak, and I put my focus not on me, the high and mighty one, but on him who is high and mighty.

Does great things for me.

Jesus said, Blessed are the poor, the poor in spirit.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the meek.

You see, it's the little ones.

Gary said something in his introduction to one of the songs.

Just, you know, the little, God's all about little things like you and me.

Because he's big and he's got all of that taken care of.

So the satisfied soul is one who sees God as high and mighty and exalted and lifted up.

And when we see him that way, then we begin to see ourselves aright.

We're just little things.

No big deal.

You're not much.

I'm not much.

We just go around acting as though we are and wanting to be.

And there is no satisfaction of soul in that, my friends.

Who's high and mighty?

He is.

He is the merciful one, verses 50 to 52.

His mercy, his mercy and grace, his mercy is for those who fear him, who have awe, a reverential awe.

When you encounter the God who is, you are undone.

There is something about it.

We can't just say, oh, hey, there's God, my buddy.

That's not God.

If you have a buddy and you call him God, that's not God.

He has come near to us in Christ.

But he's not our best friend in that regard, that we're totally comfortable with, and we just trounce through life and take Jesus with us.

That's not the Christ of the Gospels.

But he is merciful, and although we are sinful and we are in awe of him, he shows grace and loving kindness.

God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.

We saw that a few months ago in the book of James.

The haughty ones God despises.

The weak, the lonely, the small, the helpless, those of us who know our need, he draws near.

He draws near.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the pure in heart.

Those who take their rightful place in the universe, our rightful place in the universe.

A very small place in the universe.

When you compare it to God.

If we take our rightful place in the universe and see God for who he is and come to peace with that, there is a satisfaction.

We were made to respond that way.

And sin causes us to stiffen our back and stand up straight and tall and be demanding and arrogant.

That's what sin does.

God makes us little the little children.

Unless you come to him as a little child, you will not see the kingdom of God.

And so Mary found him merciful to those who fear him.

If you fear God, I'm not saying that's a that's a difficult subject, of course.

I don't have time to it's a reverential awe.

It's a total lack of flippancy.

It's the opposite of flippancy, an incredible respect that makes me want to act in a certain way.

Not because I have to, but because I respect him and who he is, and I'm undone with me and who I am.

A third aspect, the song of a satisfied soul.

The satisfied one sees God as the one who satisfies, the one who fills, the one who meets our needs.

Verse 53.

He's filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

Are you hungry?

Are you hungry?

Spiritually?

Do we hunger and thirst after righteousness?

One of the things that happens with the new birth is that we begin to have desires that, and a hunger and a longing.

Some of those we've been singing about with this Christmas carol, the desire, there's longings and deep desires and needs within us.

And it's a God-shaped vacuum that we are drawn to.

We need God, and He's the one who fills us, He's the one who satisfies us.

And we go through life and we keep looking for satisfaction in all of the wrong places.

And our satisfaction is Him.

Maybe we don't know enough about being hungry to appreciate it.

Either physically or spiritually.

The soul that is satisfied is the soul that hungers and thirsts.

That's really what we're destined for.

And when we take that stance, we become fulfilled.

That's just the way it works.

Finally, God is the faithful one who fulfills all of his promises.

Verses 54 and 55.

He's helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy.

He helps us to remember who he is and what he has promised.

He spoke to the fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever.

God has made promises.

God has committed himself to do certain things, and the soul that is satisfied is longing for the fulfillment of his promises which shall surely come.

We live in hope.

Hope.

Hope is not what we see and can touch and feel.

Hope is the assurance of things unseen, the conviction of things that are true because God has said so, but they're not here yet.

It's our no-so because God has said it, not no-so because we've experienced it yet.

And the soul that is satisfied finds deep satisfaction in the promises of God.

What I find here in my impoverished attempts to try to bring this to light is there's just a beautiful person here.

There's a young woman.

Simple, not an impressive young woman, probably not as beautiful as all of the paintings were of her.

She was just a normal Jewish girl.

And yet there is something so beautiful about her.

And what's beautiful about her is her spirit and soul that is responding to God.

His glory overfills its rim when we are satisfied in him.

That's another psalm writer by the name of John Piper.

None of those are in Scripture, although some act as though it almost is.

But he said, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Takes a bit of a twist on the Westminster Confession.

And he says, We most glorify him when we are most satisfied in him.

His glory in our lives overflows the rim when we are satisfied in him.

That's what I want to be.

I want to be a simple little non-arrogant, non-obnoxious, no big deal guy who finds my deepest satisfaction in who God is and what God is doing, even though I don't understand him and I can't get my arms around him and I don't like some of the things that he does.

Oh well, oh well.

The satisfaction of soul is not dependent upon that.

And I guess what I'm really saying is, would you maybe this week, in advance of Christmas, take some time meditating on the Magnificat and learn to sing, as it were, a song of a satisfied soul.

Would you pray with me?

Heavenly Father, if that happens as I've already prayed at the beginning, if that happens, it would be a miracle.

But Lord, you are the Lord of miracles, and you can work in our lives.

You can work in my life, you can work in the lives of the people here, and you can cause us to find our satisfaction in you.

Oh Lord, help us.

Nurture us, mold us, grow us.

Lord, we were meant to be satisfied with you.

May your glory overflow the rim as we are satisfied in you.

Lord, I pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

I think you need to stand for the benediction.

Now, my friends, my friends, go into the world in peace.

Have courage.

Hold on to that which is good, and honor all men.

Strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, restore the wandering, comfort the grieving, and share the gospel.

And may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all this day and forevermore.

In his name.

Amen.

You're dismissed.