Christmas Eve 2023

Well, we are in the fourth Sunday of Advent, which just happened to land on Christmas Eve.

And so we are gonna study Luke chapter one this morning, and there we find Mary, Jesus' mama, and she is there.

She's just a girl, really.

She's a Jewish girl.

She's probably 13 or 14 years old, which is incredibly scary if you're sitting in here and you're 13 or 14 years old to think that this happened to a girl your age.

In the midst of this story, this miracle story, an angel comes and says to her, Hey, don't be afraid.

You're favored by God.

You're gonna have a baby, the Messiah.

Your people have been waiting for him who's gonna come and save them from their sins.

And to that major disruption to all of her plans, she says, amazingly, I am a servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

Mary then goes and travels and she goes and visits her cousin Elizabeth, where I would have had a pity party.

That would have been the moment, woe is me, God destroyed my plans, look what God's doing to my life.

You know, woe is me.

But she didn't do that.

She had no pity party.

She actually breaks out in a song.

I won't sing it.

My Christmas gift to you.

That's the Christmas gift that you get from me, me not singing.

This text is known as the Magnificant, Luke 1, starting at verse 46.

And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of a 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.

So point number one is this we are receivers from God before we become doers for God.

We're like Mary, who rejoices, but the joy is coming out of awakening to the Heavenly Father that comes toward her, pursues her, not in shame, not to shame us, not to limit us, but rather the Heavenly Father moves toward us in our mess, in our weakness, our humble estate.

And then this child, this Christ child, becomes Christ on the cross, our sin put upon him who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God.

See, we are always receivers from God before we are doers for God.

So our faith is a surrender to the Heavenly Father that is pursuing us, which is really good news because it means that self-righteousness and judgment can be replaced with gratitude and joy.

Verse 50.

And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

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

He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever.

Point number two is that God loyally and lavishly favors the weak and the weary.

Mary says, God exalts those in humble estate.

About a month ago, Time magazine announced their person of the year.

Do y'all know who the person Time magazine's person of the year?

Some of you know because you were so proud of it, because you're a Swifty, and it was such good news.

Some of you couldn't believe it.

How could she be?

Taylor Swift, here she is.

Taylor Swift's person of the year, Time magazine, person, amazing cover.

Also, she also won Armpits of the Year.

So that there you see it.

There you go.

Just beautiful picture of her armpits for the whole world to enjoy her armpits for the next month.

This year, Taylor was on her Eras tour.

Did anybody go?

Anybody?

Yeah, you're proud of it.

You're proud if you went because it wasn't easy to go, right?

You were real proud of it.

You told a few people.

She packed out arenas, and then because so many people couldn't go, she made a movie of it, packed out movie theaters, and then she decided to bless the NFL, start dating Travis Kelsey, just bringing a whole new stream of revenue to the NFL for them, just blessing people.

She grossed, she personally grossed somewhere around$1.82 billion this year.

She owns two jets, if you're keeping record, two jets, uh home, multiple homes in New York, multiple homes in LA, home in Nashville.

Here's her coastal home in Rhode Island, just a little place up on the coast, just a little, just a little humble estate up there.

No, this is a lavish estate of wealth, right?

Forbes now estimates that she is a billionaire.

She is wealthy in money.

She is wealthy in status.

She is wealthy in influence.

Now, I'm gonna guess there's no billionaires in here.

There could be, you know, like it's possible.

We're doing a children's renovation, just over, love to tell you about it.

Three bathrooms.

If anybody can do it, we can do it together.

We can do it together.

But probably we're just like normal folks, you know, like getting TSA pre-check was a big deal when you figured that out.

You're like you really felt proud of yourself.

And if you don't know what it is, now you're gonna Google it and figure that out.

We don't always feel like Taylor's estate, do we?

That lavish, that wealthy.

But you know what?

Taylor doesn't feel like that on the inside.

And neither do we.

We all feel kind of not quite put together.

We are of humble estate, and we are in need of comfort and love.

Humble estate means that our inner condition is lowly.

We are lowly in the core of our inner being.

Sinners in need of God's grace.

We are created in God's image, and yet we can't hold it all together.

We need God's grace to us, known in this Jesus Christmas story.

The love of the Heavenly Father to us.

Christmas gives us a gracious interruption.

It's God's interruption toward us.

Into our world, into our mess.

That's what the incarnation is.

God into our world so that we would know objectively that He loves us while we're still messy.

Mary says in verse 53, He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he sent away empty.

Sounds kind of like Jesus is teaching a Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are those who admit they're spiritually bankrupt.

Being poor in spirit, humble in a state means we don't have it all together.

We need the gracious interruption, the incarnation.

Last week an image went viral of a Texas high Texas High School Championship football game.

And we're gonna show you this image.

This is a real image, okay?

I just need you to know that.

Another thing I need you to know before we show you the image, the little guy.

Okay, the little guy in the picture is six foot four, two hundred pounds.

The little guy.

Now here's the picture from the Texas Championship game.

That's Byron Washington, six foot seven and a half, three hundred and eighty pounds.

That little number 11 doesn't have a chance.

All games.

That's a long game.

That guy's a giant.

Right?

Now we know the feeling of giants in our hearts, impossibilities that we can't get ourselves past.

Usually it's a story, a shame-filled story, or a story of condemnation that's on loop in your mind and your heart.

And we hear, I'm not enough.

I'll always be broken.

I need to earn something to be loved.

There's no way I could be known and loved.

There's no way God could know me, really know me, and love me.

And beloved, we need another story.

And Mary gives it to us because she says accurately, I am of humble estate, yet I am greatly favored.

Honest about her condition, a confession.

And yet basking in the favor of God.

The best commentary on this passage that I've found is written back in the 1500s by theologian Martin Luther.

Here's what he wrote The stress should not be on the low estate, but on the word regarded.

Mary's low estate is not to be praised, but God's regard.

As when a prince gives his hand to a beggar, the meanness of the beggar is not to be praised, but the graciousness and goodness of the prince.

You must not only think and speak of lowliness, but come into it, sink into it, utterly helpless, that God alone may save you.

Or at any rate, should it not happen, you should at least desire it and not shrink.

For this reason we are Christians, and have the gospel, that we may fall into distress and lowliness, and that God thereby may have his work in us.

This is why we say every week we are more broken than we originally thought, but we're more loved by God and Jesus than we could dare to dream.

Because it is in our brokenness and our hunger and our lowliness that we are filled.

That's what Mary says.

He fills the hungry.

Point number three: our hearts respond in worship as we come to know grace without conditions.

Our hearts respond in worship.

We can define grace as one-way love.

It's almost like being, as if you're a kiddo and you grow up in Georgia like I did, and you're out on the streets at 3:30 in the afternoon, a hot, humid, nasty August afternoon, and you're playing, and it's just gross out, right?

It's thick, and somebody comes along and opens up a fire hydrant, and it's just a flow of cold water to you.

One way refreshment.

That's the love of Christ to us.

One way refreshment to us.

But we're not always joy-filled, right?

We're not always rejoicing.

I mean, being a Christian is an objective reality with a subjective experience.

Our experience will come and go, the experience of joy.

I mean, some weeks, praise God.

That's amazing.

God's amazing.

Praise God.

You know, the next week's like a bad Tuesday, and you're like, what's going on?

Is God active in my life?

I can't believe that fell through.

I don't know what happened.

Why'd He do that?

Why'd she do that?

I can't believe that happens.

We won't see every day.

There are days that we will cry.

Christmas can be an extremely lonely season.

Maybe this year you lost somebody.

Maybe this year you got sick.

Maybe this year somebody betrayed you.

Maybe a horrible feeling.

Maybe you moved.

Anybody moved this year?

Like, that's horrible.

Have you moved recently?

Moving's awful.

Like, we need to pray for the sick, the dying, anybody moving.

We just need to go ahead and bring you down front and lay hands on it.

My girls always say, why do we live in such a small house?

It's just we don't want to move.

Like it's horrible.

It's awful.

I'm just saying, life is tiring.

Life can be exhausting.

Life, and then life can be really, really difficult.

But then the next day comes.

And we will sing of his goodness.

When we survey Mary's song, if we just look at this magnificent, if we survey it, Mary's just describing how good God is.

She's rejoicing in him.

Look at this.

Verse 47, God my Savior.

48, he has looked on me.

49, for he is mighty.

Holy is his name.

50, his mercy.

51, he has shown strength.

52, he humbled the proud.

53, he filled the hungry.

54, he helped his people.

55, he spoke to us.

The song's just all about him, his nature, his ability, his pursuit.

Almost 550 years ago, the painter Sandro Botticelli painted this Renaissance painting, the Madonna of the Magnificant.

It's hanging in Florence, Italy today.

And when he painted Mary, Mary is blessed by two different angels.

She's holding the Christchild.

She's riding the Magnificant.

And if you look at it, if you look at the right hand of the Christchild, he painted the Christchild guiding the hand of Mary.

And it was his way to say, this is all about him.

This is all about this Jesus.

His pursuit of us long before our pursuit of him.

We are receivers from him before we are doers for him.

Last point, point number four.

God's word, Christ Himself, is the secure announcement of favor our hearts long for.

My grandfather, we called him Gramps.

Here's a picture of myself in Grant.

Oh my goodness.

That's me.

What happened?

Because look at the potential I had.

I mean, that's a cute little kid.

That's amazing.

Don't you want to snuggle that little guy right there?

And that's my Gramps.

And I lost my Gramps.

He died of lung cancer when I was 15 years old.

So I had the gift.

I had the gift of 15 years of a smart, loving, amazing man who doted favor over me.

He and my granny would go on trips all around the world and he would lug around, this was the 80s, a big camcorder up on the shoulder.

Remember that?

Big camcorder, lug that thing all over the world.

And then they'd come home and they'd sit us down in the living room, make us watch these hours and hours of them just walking through Italian villages or Swiss Alps or whatever.

He wanted us to see the world.

He bought me my first mutual fund, an Investgo.

Thank you very much.

I still remember that.

Taught me what it meant to invest.

He came to my basketball games, he came to my swim meets.

In his eyes, I was amazing.

And I never questioned it.

In his eyes, before I had accomplished anything, just a little scrawny, snotty, messy-haired little boy, I was amazing.

And I never questioned it.

And you know what?

I loved being with him.

I adored him.

It's been 29 years.

I still adore him.

I still have dreams of him.

All because of his gracious interruption into my lowly estate.

Have you ever been loved like that?

It's amazing.

It's a taste of the Heavenly Father, is what it is.

See, my grants was always making a proclamation of favor over me, even when I didn't deserve it.

And that this is the gift that we have in the incarnation and in the cross of God moving toward us in our mess.

That in Jesus, not our record, but Jesus' record.

God can't love us anymore, any less.

He loves us like he loves his own son, Jesus.

We have forever favor with him.

We spend a lot of time grasping for favor.

Something to deem us okay or enough, absolved, worthy from other people or status or success, what we drive or what we look like, an image.

Maybe we can try to get it all together finally.

It's exhausting.

I get exhausted.

And into our sin, into our self-saving, into our mess, our guilt, our shame, God moves.

Into our grasping, God moves.

A gracious interruption into our humble estate.

And he says, In this Jesus, in Christ, I'm with you.

Emmanuel, I'm with you, and I'm for you.

In closing, let me read these lavish words from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 1, 7 through 10.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Amen and amen.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, thank you that in Jesus you dote favor over us, that you cannot love us anymore any less because you love us like you love your own Son, Jesus, and that our record is his record, and that we are washed pure and we are fully righteous.

May we rest all the more in the supremacy, the sovereignty, the goodness of this Jesus.

That he is enough for us.

He is enough for our hearts, and may we treasure him as you dote favor over us in your divine, amazing, and lavish love.

In Christ's name.

Amen.