Luke 1:26-56 - Advent Joy in Christ Jesus!

We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, as most of you know.

And during the Advent season, we take on these uh these four themes in particular.

We're looking at a passage in Luke chapter one if you want to turn there.

Um, the Wi-Fi uh guest network is up on the screen with a password if you're here in the room.

If you're joining us online, I hope you have your Bibles with you.

This is an amazing passage about the last half or so of Luke chapter one that we'll be looking at.

But the idea is that we're gonna be talking about Advent joy in Christ.

We looked at the theme of Advent love in Christ last week.

And uh, so we'll have Advent uh, joy, hope, and peace.

And these in remarkable measure, unconditional love, unquenchable joy, unbounded hope, and unshakable peace.

Who would like a little more of all of that?

I think you probably would.

You don't have to raise your hand, but uh I know my heart is longing for all of that.

We sum up the entire Advent experience this year in this little sentence.

Because of the love of God for sinners, he sent Christ to bring us the joy of salvation, the hope of eternal life, and the peace of God to rule our hearts.

Again, I'll take as much of that as the Lord will send.

From our vantage point in history, we look back through time and reflect on Jesus first appearing, and Advent means arrival or appearing.

And we also, from our vantage point here in space-time history, we look forward to his second coming.

And that's what Advent really is.

It's it's we don't, we're not just ramping up to Christmas.

Uh, we're looking back as well as looking forward, and we really do celebrate, of course, his birth and his uh first appearing.

Have no clue if it really happened on December 25th or not.

I'm sorry if that smashes anybody's, you know, sort of uh view of the whole Christmas thing.

I've got no clue what the date, precise date of his birth was.

I'm just really glad he came.

I'm blown away in awe and wonder at why he came and that he came.

And rather than uh wrestle and struggle with all of that and try and figure it all out for myself, I'm just gonna say thank you for coming.

I'm just gonna say we're grateful.

Um the uh for years and years and years, there have been those who have had questions about the advent of Jesus, his coming.

Some have asked questions about was he really a historical person?

Uh if he was, is he just a human being who just was really good and led a religious movement?

Uh if uh some others would say, well, he was God, but he wasn't really human, and he just appeared to be human, and there's been a lot of arguing back and forth about it.

And then there are others that just kind of yawn and think back to the the uh advent of Jesus and just go, well, okay, so what?

You know?

I love uh Dorothy Sayers, she says the incarnation is the most dramatic thing about Christianity.

Indeed, the most dramatic thing that ever entered into the mind of man.

But if you tell people so, they stare at you in bewilderment.

And some of you may even have, you know, as Christians all your lives, still kind of gone, well, what's it but what's the big deal with this?

And I love the way Sayers, who used to hang out with C.S.

Lewis and some of the rest of the inklings, she says, the incarnation may be devastating or rubbish.

But if we call it dull, what in heaven's name is worthy to be called exciting?

And I think she's right on there.

Uh great read, uh, her book, Creed or Chaos, if you uh are looking for something to read this holiday season.

Let's take a look then at Luke chapter one, and we'll look at uh the Annunciation, we'll look at the visit between Mary and Elizabeth, we'll look at uh what is called the Magnificat, this uh amazing song of Mary in response to all that God has done in her very young life.

Some suggest she was somewhere between 12 and maybe 16 years of age.

So if you're here and you're uh among that uh sort of youth group age, um that's a pretty remarkable thing to happen to one so young.

The Annunciation has inspired many songs, uh, and the Magnificate is certainly one of those.

The Ave Maria is inspired by this passage as well, um, and much art as well.

If uh you're following on uh the Daily Devotions with Curates Corner, Kim's uh podcast during the Advent season, you'll see this painting right here, and uh.

She talks a little bit about that tomorrow morning, so I won't say anything more about it other than to say, join her, and uh I think you'll be really, really blessed.

Let's take a look at the text then.

Uh Luke chapter 1, and it's gonna start in verse 26.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

We'll run through to the end of the chapter pretty quick.

I'll make some comments along the way.

Um one thing that you need to know has already happened, and that's that the relative of Mary, the mother of Jesus, the relative of Mary, her name is Elizabeth, older lady, um, and her husband's name is Zecharias.

And uh she will, she and the that couple will become the parents of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus.

And so we're at that place where Elizabeth in the storyline, Elizabeth is already six months pregnant, and she's advanced in years, we're told in uh in Luke chapter one, which I think is awesome.

She had been barren all of her life, and so now she's advanced in years, she's six months pregnant, and I love the way pregnant women walk around, you know, with that big thing.

And I can just imagine her walking around, you know, at 75 or 80 years of age and going, check this out, you know, and just being so blessed and pleased with how God has uh uh been so uh gracious to her and to give her a child after all of these years, because back in their day and time, see, people would look down their noses at a woman who had been barren and hadn't been able to have children, or a couple that hadn't been able to have children, even though Zecharias was a priest in the temple.

Um much sort of social stigma to the whole thing of not having had any children, and surely God must be mad at you, and that sort of thing.

And along comes God and does something that most people would think is impossible.

She's six months pregnant at verse 26.

But the angel Gabriel was sent then from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth.

First of all, that we could camp out right there.

That the Lord sends angels anywhere is pretty remarkable to me.

And then if you know the sort of lay of the land, that the Lord would send an angel to Nazareth, that's kind of the other side of the tracks.

You know, most of us would kind of think of that as a rough place or a place that had gone downhill or whatever.

And this angel, uh Gabriel, is sent from God to a city in Galilee, and Galilee, the northern third of Israel, that was kind of looked down upon by all the people who lived in the southern part of Israel.

All the people down in Judea looked down their nose at the simple people up in Galilee.

Well, Judea had Jerusalem.

Judea was a center of worship and the center of political power during that time for Israel.

But this angel is sent to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph.

Most of you know the story, and you're already locked in.

You already see some things, but don't allow your familiarity to breed any sort of indifference to the text.

Try to see this with me today, if you will.

God sends this uh angel to this virgin, engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the descendants of David.

That's very important because Messiah was promised to come from the line of David.

And the virgin's name was Mary.

Coming in, he said to her, Hey, hey, hail, favored one, the Lord is with you.

Now, when angels show up, that usually causes a bit of a stir.

But for this angel to show up and to say this, and by the way, this is where we get Ave Maria, that song from.

Right here.

Hail, favored one, favored that word there in the Greek is the same kind of root word we get from uh that we translate often, graced one.

Hail, favored one, graced one, the Lord is with you.

I love to hear the Lord is with you.

I love to say, the Lord is with you.

When you're with someone who's hurting, or someone who's gotten some bad news, or you're somebody who's just about to go through something difficult, what more beautiful thing could you say?

The Lord is with you.

Never alone.

Never alone.

Your case is never hopeless because the Lord is with you.

Love that.

She was greatly troubled at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this might be.

Verse 29 reminded me of the way we all stare at our phones, you know, and especially the teenagers, you know, the ones that are kind of born, they're born with a smartphone, right?

And from from their early days, they're like this all the time.

And they never, it's almost like they never look up.

And what if Mary had had a smartphone and had never looked up when Gabriel brought this news, you know?

But no, she's pondering.

And she is troubled by it, which I would be too.

She kept pondering what kind of salutation this might be.

Angel said to her, do not be afraid.

Most often repeated negative command in scripture, reminding us what the God of the Bible wants for you and wants for me, that we not be afraid in this world, as crazy as it is, as vulnerable as we are, as fearful and anxious as we might get, do not be afraid, applies to you and to me.

When God speaks those kinds of words to us, do not be afraid, Mary.

For you have found favor or grace with God.

She's been graced by God.

Now I realize some of you may have been raised Catholic, some of you may have raised Protestant, some of you may have been raised without any church background whatsoever, but just let me acknowledge the fact that some people have made way too much out of Mary, and other people have made way too little out of Mary.

So let's not do either one of those.

Let's acknowledge the fact that she knew God's grace.

And just like we need it, she needed it.

And God has shown his favor or his grace to her.

I love to.

This is all Dr.

Luke who's writing this down.

The guy who was uh a medical-minded fellow, we know that from Colossians chapter 4.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

The Apostle Paul called him a doctor, a physician.

Writes like a historian also, because in the first part of this chapter, he says, inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of things accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word have handed them down to us, it seemed fitting for me.

Having investigated everything carefully, a doctor would do that from the beginning to write it up for you in consecutive order.

Most excellent Theophilus, that's his friend, evidently, that his name means lover of God, so that you might know the exact truth, not conjecture, not hearsay, but the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

Rumors were going around.

I mean, good grief.

Virgins don't have babies.

Um ladies like Elizabeth don't have babies.

Dr.

Luke comes and scopes it all out, checks it all out, asks all the right kind of questions.

Well, what was, and probably had an opportunity to sit with Mary, the mother of Jesus.

For the kind of stuff he knows here and reports here, it seems right that he did.

It seems that's the case.

She would have told Luke exactly what Gabriel would have said, and that she had been favored or graced by God.

Do you do not be afraid that the angel said, Do not be afraid to her.

And that the angel said, Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you'll name him Jesus.

This means the Lord is my salvation.

Or the Lord is salvation.

So the Christian faith is not autosoteric.

Soteriology is the study of salvation itself.

And so when we answer the question, what how in the world are sinful human beings reconciled to God?

We don't point to ourselves following rules or some list of rules that must be followed.

We point to Jesus.

Because he's the only one that could have lived the life that's demanded of us.

And then when he dies on the cross, he's the only one that could have died that kind of death that actually made the kind of impact it's made in my life and in yours.

And we come to give thanks for that event of the cross and his purchasing our salvation.

We come to that table today.

Behold, you'll conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you'll call his name Jesus.

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

And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.

I love that word forever, and his kingdom will have no end.

Look at that resume of the son you're going to have that Gabriel gives to Mary for the baby that will be in her womb, her virgin womb.

And Mary is responding now, verse 34, because she knows she's a virgin.

She says in verse 34, How can this be?

I'm a virgin.

So it's interesting to me.

She didn't fixate on the resume at all of the kid that she's supposed to bear.

She's just going, This doesn't make any sense.

This seems impossible.

How could that be?

I have not known a man in that way.

She's engaged, betrothed to Joseph, but she's not yet consummated the marriage.

How can this be?

I'm a virgin.

And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit, this is the direct answer to the question.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you.

The power of the Most High will overshadow you.

For that reason, the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God.

Not just another teacher, not just another rabbi, not just another leader of some world religion, the son of definite article, the son, unique son of God.

This is awesome.

Shocking.

Behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age.

And she who was called Baron is now in her sixth month.

And then verse 37 is interesting.

Some of your English Bible translations will say, For nothing will be impossible with God.

Other ones will say, Every word of God will be proven true.

And that's the gist of it.

See, we have a tendency to take one verse like that, put it on a plaque or embroider it on a thing, put it up on a wall, and bring it, you know, when we pray, like if we're a football player, we bring it to the football, you know, prayer that's gonna happen before the game.

Nothing's impossible for us because God's on our side, and therefore we're gonna get Alabama.

No.

But that verse, it's that kind of verse that we like to lift out and use for our own purposes with our own agenda in mind, and yet God's got something amazing in mind here.

And the point of this scripture is really that everything God intends to do, He can do.

Now you don't forget that.

That's very important.

And it may not feel that way to you right in this minute, but it will someday.

It will come true, it will ring true.

Hopefully, the Holy Spirit will remind us of this, that we can trust God.

Why?

Because every word that God declares, every promise he makes, every bit of his purposes and plans will be accomplished.

38.

Mary then says, Behold, and I love this response.

This is a teenager.

Behold, the bond slave of the Lord.

Be it done to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her.

Look at how she fully embraces God's will and God's plan.

She doesn't whine, she doesn't complain, she doesn't say, Why me?

Why now?

I mean, think about her Christmas plan.

Oh, that wasn't a Christmas yet.

Okay, think about her, think about her plans for the end of the year.

With her, or think about her plans for the next couple of years.

She's betrothed to Joseph already.

She's probably already dreaming about, you know, that that little house in in Bethlehem or in Nazareth with a little yard, a little fenced-in yard, and a couple sheep and a whatever, and a carpenter shop and all that stuff.

She's probably thought some of that out.

You know, I can't, Joey and I are gonna, man, we're gonna start a business.

We're gonna be, it's gonna be awesome together, you know.

And yet, here comes this curveball that we call Christmas.

And she said, I'm the bond slave, I'm I'm the I'm the bond slave, the do loss.

That's the same word that the Apostle Paul uses when he opens most of his letters.

I'm the slave of Jesus Christ.

And one of the things that will set you free in this world that's so wacky is to realize that you do not belong to you.

You do not belong to the culture, you belong to him.

And that will set you free.

That's the kind of freedom your heart and my heart have been longing for.

And that will stir your heart to joy.

Um, so this is just amazing.

So the angel departs.

Verse 39.

At this time, Mary arose and went to the haste with haste to the hill country to a city of Judah.

So this is gonna be her visit with Elizabeth, as you can see on the screen.

And it came about that when Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

This is awesome, right here.

So the baby in Elizabeth's womb is six months old.

She's out like with the bowling ball here, and aged, but I think she's probably just sitting around giddy the whole time, you know, uh, because of uh of all of her life having been a life of despair, all of her life having been socially stigmatized by not being able to be pregnant.

And here she is, and and she's got the one who's gonna be the forerunner of the Messiah.

And this baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

This uh fetus, this mere piece of tissue, as they might say in our time, leapt in her womb.

Interesting.

What does that imply about the pre-born?

What does that imply?

It's really important that we think that through.

She cried out with a loud voice and said, Blessed among women are you.

She's look at this teenager, blessed is the fruit of your womb.

How did she know?

We don't have any record of Mary having said what was going on yet.

It's not like that email, hey, Annie Elizabeth, I'm coming to see you, and by the way, I'm pregnant too.

We don't have that yet.

She just, Elizabeth must have been revealed to her by the Lord.

And blessed is the fruit of your womb.

How has it happened to me that the mother of my Lord, this teenager, should come to me?

Theotokos is what Mary is so often called, mother of God.

Um and and here, Elizabeth recognizes what most of us, you know, it's taken us a long time.

Figure that out.

Again, some of us make way too much of that title, some of us make way too little of that title.

Let's jump to either one of those.

Let's realize she was graced.

She had a very special, unique role in redemption history, and we should respect that.

That's just amazing to me.

Verse 44, for behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leapt in my womb for what?

Joy.

See, in the presence of Jesus is joy forevermore.

And we we we get told that a lot.

But I mean, this is like a literal example of that.

There is this this here here along comes Mary.

Has the Holy Spirit already overshadowed her?

Is she already pregnant?

What's going on here?

Well, when she leaves from Elizabeth here, she's going to be three months pregnant.

So yeah, so when the baby, he leapt for joy, this baby did, and blessed is she who believed, that's Elizabeth recognizing Mary's believing heart, that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.

So when we sing past the promise, folks, what we're saying is that the Christian faith is not a list of rules for you to follow.

It's not, and it's not something, uh, it's not, this isn't 66 books right here, this Bible that you gotta go figure it out.

Get your nose in there and you gotta figure it all out and come up with all the answers.

No.

It's a promise.

The question is, will you receive and believe and receive this promise today?

In every day of my life.

Will we do that?

Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.

I've got to hear, here's the magnificent Mary said, and this is so beautiful.

My soul exalts the Lord.

My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

There's over 200 uses of the word joy or rejoice, some variation of the word joy.

Over 200 of those in our Bibles.

This book just is dancing, man.

This book is full of joy if you're looking for some.

And it's found in God my Savior, Mary says.

For he has regard for the humble state of his bond slave.

Isn't that interesting?

Who it is Jesus was born to?

Peasant girl, socially marginalized because she's pregnant before she's actually married, living in a pass-through country, living as Jesus grows up in Nazareth on the other side of the tracks.

That's no fanfare, no royal palace, born in a little stable, born in a little manger scene.

It's amazing that God would do all of that.

He's had regard for the humble state of his bond slave.

Behold, from this time on, all generations will count me blessed.

And do you know who you are?

You are a part of all generations.

We are a part of all generations because today we're actually counting her as blessed.

You're a fulfillment of this prophetic song.

As you think of her as blessed because the Lord was gracious to her, and you think of that, and I think of that as the blessed life.

We've redefined what it means to have a blessed life when we look at these pages.

Out there, there's a whole different definition of the blessed life.

And here, in this book, the blessed life is one life that is favored or graced by God.

Verse 49, the mighty one has done great things for me.

Holy is his name.

Now he quotes, or she quotes, Psalm 103, and his mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear him.

Do you know this teenager knew her Bible?

Their Bible would have been the Old Testament, okay?

But she knew the scriptures.

And so she quotes them and says, His mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear him.

Do you fear the Lord?

The fear of the Lord is one of those aspects of our view of God that we've lost sight of in our day and time.

We think of God as the cosmic concierge.

Get me what I want.

And yet our disp the disposition of our hearts should be more like Mary's here.

That we are humbled in his presence, that we're graced by his mercy and his love.

And look, verse 50, his mercy has bought generation after generation toward those who fear him.

He's done mighty deeds with his army, scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart.

And he has brought down rulers from their thrones.

He's exalted those, or exalted those who were humble.

Sent away the rich empty-handed, has given, in other words, and the idea there is anybody who thinks they're self-sufficient, they don't need God.

Okay, then God will give you what you want.

If you think you don't need God, God will give you exactly what you desire.

That is, life without Him.

He's given help to Israel, his servant, in remembrance of His mercy, and He spoke to our father, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever.

And then verse 56, I'll close there.

Mary stayed with her about three months, and then she returned to her home.

So Mary comes at six months in Elizabeth's pregnancy and leaves after three months in Elizabeth.

So nine months.

So I wonder if she helped deliver John the Baptist.

Can you imagine that?

Push harder, Auntie Elizabeth.

Push, push, push.

Look at this baby, it's a boy.

Awesome.

And then by then, Mary is, you know, just a little like that herself, right?

And she goes, we don't know much about her home life.

We don't know much about her parentage, that sort of thing.

We know she's from the line of David as well.

So it's just fascinating.

I love this read.

There's so much here.

The Annunciation, Mary and Elizabeth, the magnificate.

Okay, so unquenchable joy, I'm gonna make this argument, is the fruit of receiving God's grace, verse 30, resolve, being resolved to God's will, verse 38, be it done to me according to your will.

And then remaining connected with God's people, and she does that when she goes to be with Auntie Elizabeth or whatever their relationship was, their relatives, we know that much.

Remaining connected with God's people, something a lot of us in our day and time have, you know, lost sight of some of that.

Now, you're here, so I'm preaching the choir.

That's you're here, you want to be connected.

I get it.

Uh, and if you're watching online, you're working hard at staying connected.

But think of people that you know that have just sort of drifted away from the community of faith and the impact that that is having on their lives.

They don't even realize it only takes one generation for it to completely be drifted away in a family.

And if you don't pass the promise down, your children won't grow up believing.

And so it's very important.

And then rejoicing in God.

So talk just for a second about receiving God's grace.

Alistair Begg says we deplete our joy by forgetting what we should remember and by remembering what we should forget.

Is that beautifully said?

So we forget what we should remember, and we remember what we should forget.

Some of you struggle with receiving God's forgiveness.

What's happening there is you're forgetting what you should remember, who God is, what God has promised.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from, say it, all unrighteousness.

Don't forget that.

Remember that.

Especially when you come to the table and give thanks.

But the problem is some of us forget that, and sometimes we remember things that we ought to forget when we're being influenced and shaped out in the world in which we live all the time, to think uh in some way that is uh unbiblical, to think about other persons in the wrong kind of way, to become hateful, to become sort of agnostic in our belief.

There really isn't a God.

How could there be a God?

Look at all the pain, evil, and suffering in the world.

You know, those kinds of thoughts are out there and they're trying to shape and influence us all the time.

And they're always putting, it's almost as if, like they go into a department store and switch the price tags on the high expensive items and put them on the cheap items.

And they put the price tags from the cheap items and put them on the expensive items.

And you walk into the store and you just, it's all the values are upended, and you don't understand what's right and what's wrong out there in the world in which we live.

We need grace and we need grace upon grace.

And the good news is that's what's on offer to you and on offer to me, grace upon grace.

Deal Moody said, a man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough today to last him for the next six months.

Nor can he inhale sufficient air into his lungs with one breath to sustain life for a week to come.

We are permitted to draw upon God's store of grace from day to day as we need it.

Tomorrow morning, when you wake up, his mercies will be.

They're new every morning.

And I get up before my feet hit the floor.

I'm reminded of that thought each and every day.

My mom, 89-year-old, I've told you before, she says the Lord's Prayer in Psalm 23, every single morning before her feet hit the floor.

Tomorrow morning, before your feet hit the floor, I invite you to join my mom, or remind yourself that God's mercies are new this morning.

Lift up the empty hands of faith and receive a new batch of his mercies.

We live from grace to grace.

We must receive his grace and watch the joy begin to be bear fruit in our lives.

Secondly, Mary seems resolved to God's will.

I love that.

We saw that in verse 38 there, where she says, Behold the bond slave of the, I belong to you, to the Lord.

Be it done to me according to your word.

That's quite a disposition of heart.

I don't know about you, but I'm often negotiating with God in my prayer life.

God, you know, I really would like to see this happen.

I'd like to see it happen in this way, and I'd like to see it happen at this time.

Raise your hand.

Is that make me feel better a little bit?

There's a few of you that have done that, right?

You're advising Almighty God, creator of everything that exists, who holds the universe in place, who created gravity and air and water, and we think he needs our advice on how to run our little lives.

And no, he doesn't, but we can receive his grace and be resolved to his will.

Lewis talked about it in the weight of glory.

You're familiar with this quote, but it's good to bring it back around every now and then.

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward, the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is on offer to us, like ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

We are far too easily pleased.

Yeah, the weight of glory is so good as an essay.

You want to go online and read that.

Thirdly, um, not only uh is unquenchable joy the fruit of receiving God's grace and being resolved to his will, but also remaining connected with God's people.

It actually happens.

I walk in this room and you, in your presence, remind me of the gospel.

And my heart uh begins to be filled with joy.

It's not just a mood, it's not just a feeling, it's deeper than that.

Moods come and go, feelings come and go.

We all know that.

But when I look in the eyes of people who I've been walking with for now 20 years, some of you, 20 years, and I know and we know each other's story, and we know the highs and the lows that we've had to go through.

And we have seen God's grace sustain and surround us, protect us, preserve us, comfort us.

My heart is filled not just with silly happiness, but with deep joy.

And that kind of joy is it's not just a mood.

If you know what I'm talking about, it's more than a mood.

It's it's it's it's kind of a settled confidence that things are gonna work out the way that God intends them to work out.

And that's what I would call joy.

It's that kind of thing.

Um the worship of a local church, David Pryor is an Anglican minister, um also a Bible commentator.

He wrote, the worship of a local church has an indispensable role in building up the faith of the discipleship of its members.

When it is vital, participatory, expectant, and attractive.

The whole congregation grows strong in studying the Lord.

Now think that through just a little bit.

Is it vital in your life?

I I would bet it is because you're here.

Participatory.

Okay?

Are you you're not just an observer in the stands, you're actually a participant.

Yeah, we we we will we watch all these you know big sporting events or or we watch concerts or whatever, and we we sit in the stands sometimes, we stay there.

But you know, when all of all along we're supposed to be participants, you know.

Is it expectant?

Do you do you walk in here expecting to hear from God?

Or do you walk in here expecting just to be entertained or just, you know, whatever?

Be expect expect the Lord to speak to you.

Um and attract in and and that might be in spite of what the goofball up front says.

It probably is, more often than not.

But it's also attractive.

Why?

Because it's it's God's people coming together, and even the watching world looks and sees who are those people up there in that convent building, and and why is it that we keep hearing joyful singing coming out of the windows?

And why is it that when they walk out into the parking lot, there's some kind of peace in their eyes and some kind of joy in their eyes?

And that's because we've gathered together in the name of the Lord and we've grown stronger together because of his name.

And then lastly, remain connected with God's people, or excuse me, uh rejoicing in God.

See, this is what Mary does, right?

Verse 46 and 47.

My soul exalts the Lord, my spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior.

See, your joy is actually gonna be sustained depending on what you put it in.

If your heart's delight is in the stock market, if your heart's delight is in a sports team and the outcomes and all that sort of thing, you're it's gonna go like this, right?

Some of you more than others, you know?

Yeah, right.

But if you exalt in the Lord, if you rejoice in God, my Savior, in other words, if God's your Savior, if he's at the center, if he's the one that you really want to have the last word, then even his judgment to you is a delight.

Why?

Because you know that he's a righteous judge, and you know that one day he intends to come and set things right again.

And so we look forward to his second appearing, to the advent of his second coming.

The psalmist knew about it and said, You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence, the pleasures of living with you forever.

And so the ancient songwriter, you know, just fixing his heart on God, God's presence in his life, and the idea of being able to have an eternal perspective, to think of living with God forever.

That that starts to gut to in some way diffuse all of the assaults out there in the world around us that would derail our faith, would diminish our view of God, would in some way cause us to fall into the despair of this dark world.

And here comes the psalmist and says, No, it's really, let's gain this eternal perspective.

It's about God.

And Jesus said, I've told you this, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

Rejoicing in God, your Savior.

I'll close real quick with these couple of quotes.

Spurgeon.

Martin Luther, he's here's this is one of my favorite ones because it's Spurgeon quoting Luther, okay?

Um, Luther used to say that to comfort a desponding spirit is as difficult as to raise the dead.

But then we have a God who both raises the dead from their graves and his people from their despair.

Great perspective there.

You probably it's probably true, a hundred out of a hundred of us at some point are gonna face physical death.

Unless the Lord would cut human history short and return before that happens.

A hundred out of a hundred of us will face that.

Will we face that with despair?

Or will we face that with some kind of confidence in God?

So not a silly, giddy happiness thing that depends on happenings.

No, it's a calm confidence in a sovereign God and in a saving Christ who has come for you and come for me to rescue us.

And I love this about this Spurgeon quote, it's really powerful.

The end of history, Rich Velotis is a pastor up in New York.

He says, What if at the end of history the question God asks us is not whether we abstain from sin?

What if the question is, did you enter into the joy that was available to you?

Oh, I hope.

I mean, I don't I I don't have any scripture that tells me that's going to be the question that's asked, but it's an interesting question, isn't it?

What did you do with the good news that was preached to you?

Look at what Mary did.

This teenage girl, all of her plans completely up-ended, every every bit of her life completely out of control.

And yet she fixes her eyes on God as her savior, as her king, and fixes her faith on the promises of God that have been delivered to her and trusts in him no matter what.

May that be my heart and your heart as well.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for this passage.

Um the idea of an unquenchable joy is very interesting to most of us in this room or watching online, Lord.

And so we would pray to you and turn to you and ask you, Lord, to fill us with your presence, with a knowledge of your presence, with a heart that longs after you, to know you, Lord, and to experience a right relationship with you through this one, Jesus, who has come to be our rescuer, our redeemer.

We would put our faith and trust and hope in Him even now.

And uh as we come to the table to give you thanks, Lord, I pray that an extra measure, a fresh measure, a new morning mercy would overshadow our hearts today, and that we would rejoice even as we repent, because we know your response to us.

Pray all this in the name of Jesus for his glory.

Amen and amen.