Advent: God’s Word About Us

So we're in our fourth week of Advent, the four Sundays leading up to Christmas.

And so we are talking today about Mary, the mother of Jesus.

And Mary wasn't from a prestigious family.

She didn't have an impressive resume or religious resume.

She's just a girl.

Just a girl.

She's probably 13 or 14 years old.

That was the age that girls got married during the ancient Mideast.

I'm thankful that that's no longer going on.

We know she was a virgin.

We know she was engaged to this guy named Joseph.

And then in Luke 1, we learn that an angel comes to her and says to this teenager, don't be afraid.

You're favored by God.

You're going to have a baby, the Messiah, your people have been waiting for.

Will come to love and save all sinners.

So this miracle of Christmas that we celebrate, it begins with this incredibly wonderful, but to Mary, complicated announcement into her life.

I mean, this is, Mary lives in a patriarchal, hierarchical society, an incredibly religious society, unto the point where an unmarried, pregnant woman could even be put to death.

So you can imagine just sort of the concern she would have, right?

The fear she could have.

But Mary knows who she is.

And she has faith.

She makes this statement.

She says, I'm a servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

There's this unbelievable open-handedness with her future.

Luke 1, 26 through 30.

We'll read a little bit, make up a few points as we work our way through it.

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.

And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored One, the Lord is with you.

But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

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

So this passage is called the Annunciation, because it's an announcement into Mary's life.

Point number one is this, a few points this morning.

Point number one is this God's word about us, as favored by his grace, in his grace.

That's the defining announcement of our lives.

We can look for lots of other announcements, lots of other news, lots of other justifications or values to be put into our lives.

But this, to hear you are favored by God, that's a defining announcement that can change everything else.

This week I heard a few uh exciting announcements.

It's really exciting that you came to church to hear this, but this week, here's a couple of announcements I heard, just thinking about this week.

What did I hear?

Announcements I heard.

First one was this.

Kim Kardashian announced, and there's a picture, I think, where she posted it because she announced it herself.

That's kind of important for this, that she has Grammy Award-winning pianist.

Anybody hear this?

Philip Cornesh, play Christmas songs to her children to wake them up every single morning.

Okay?

So we're stressed out about buying presents for our just our kids, just buying presents, right?

Um and like your 17 family members who won't draw names, right?

And you've been trying.

And if you're not drawing names yet, it's time to convert.

Like, come on over.

Come on over to the other side.

It's really, it's really nice over here on this side.

That's a conversion, that's a Christmas conversion.

And she's paying a Grammy award-winning pianist every morning to wake her children.

Because that that'll help a child socialize really well.

She's just farting away money.

That's what's going on.

That's a Dave, that's Dave Ramsey.

That's a term.

If you if you study Dave Ramsey, that's an actual term.

She's just farting it away.

Let's just see how many ways we can just just.

And we kind of love it in a way, because I mean, there's nothing like this to make us feel more self-righteous.

Right?

Like, I mean, this is prime material.

I lived off of this all week, just all week.

If I was just a little depressed, I didn't like my life a little bit, I was, you know, doubting, so I can think about this and say, well, at least I'm, you know, I don't do that.

You know, at least I'm not that.

But then at the same time, I was sort of like, that must be nice, right?

I mean, just to be able to do that.

Like to have the margin to do that.

That's crazy.

Like that would be kind of nice.

And that can kind of make you feel a little discontent.

Like, well, maybe I do need, maybe I do need that kind of margin in order.

Because if I did, if I did, then like then I would then I would be at peace.

See how quickly all that happens, right?

But then the second announcement this week that I heard, it's a wonderful life.

Turn 75 years old this year, right?

So uh we can sit in judgment over Kim, feel so self-righteous, get a little exhausted by it because then suddenly we kind of wish we could do it also, we don't admit it, but we we do, or else you wish you had the ability to.

And so then you feel discontent, but then we watch, it's a wonderful life, and we're redeemed back into gratitude and contentment.

Those are just two silly announcements I heard that.

We're constantly hearing announcements, though, right?

Like you're hearing news that that's coming at you.

And some of us we've we've heard incredible announcements over the course of our lives.

Like you could pick them out.

If you went back and reflected on it, you could be like, oh, I remember, I remember that call, and I remember when that happened.

I remember what we were trying to have a baby, and finally we were gonna have a baby.

And you're like, oh, I remember that.

And then some of us have we could remember awful announcements, just horrible.

Because you got the phone call when you didn't, you know, when the phone shouldn't have rang, or somebody came to the door, and you're like, that shouldn't happen at that time.

You knew it was off as soon as it started, and then and then you were told that thing, and it just crushed you.

Just crushed you.

And then we've heard announcements about us, like as people, because somebody said a critical comment, right?

And it just sent you right back to when you were 12 years old in the rejection you had.

Or you experienced a failure.

Or you hear that one, um, like the one Bon Jovi song, and for whatever reason, when you hear that one song, it sends you, it sends you back to that other, that other thing, that other pain, that other mistake, that other difficulty.

So we have all these announcements, right?

We have good ones, we have bad ones.

Some of them are mistakes.

Now here's Mary.

She's made no mistake.

She's made a mistake.

But we can guess she's wrestling with a well, we know at least she's wrestling with fear, because the angel says, don't fear.

So we know she's wrestling with fear.

And then we can only assume that she has some wrestlings and issues with the ramifications of even this wonderful news of how she's gonna be a part of God's plan.

There's a lot of ramifications for this.

Certainly, she had to feel some measure of loneliness, of rejection societally, the shame of not fitting in.

The pain of life that she thought was planned out, the order it was gonna play out, and now, even in a really wonderful way, it's been changed, but still, her plan was upset.

And yet she has this open-handedness.

It's quite inspiring, really.

Mary goes and visits her cousin Elizabeth.

While she's with Elizabeth, she just bursts out in this song, and that's our text this morning.

This song is known as the Magnificon.

So her entire future is just unknown to Mary.

And she's just lowly in the most wonderful of ways of surrender and open-handedness.

And she begins to sing, or at least it's a poem.

I like to think she's singing it.

Luke 1, 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 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.

So despite the circumstances, she's able to ascribe back to God who he is and worship and hold him as Lord.

I love what Martin Luther, theologian about 1500s.

I love that this is what I always, this quote I always think about when I read verse 48.

Here's what Luther 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.

Point number two is this God's gracious word of favor over our hearts and to our hearts.

It becomes clearer as we embrace our need of him.

These things are connected.

We embrace our need of him, our lowliness, and it becomes clearer this word of favor to us.

In our passage, Mary refers back to Hannah.

Hannah's a lady in the Old Testament.

Hannah was childless.

She desperately wanted a child.

She couldn't have one.

She's so distraught over this.

In the midst of all of that distress and being distraught that she can't have a child, her husband goes and marries another lady, a second wife, and has children with that lady.

You can only imagine the amount of rejection that that would produce, self-loathing that that would produce inside of this woman, this Hannah.

And to make it worse, that lady, this little brat of a woman who's having all these children popping out, right?

Like she starts to mock the pain of Hannah, the first wife.

So Hannah's hurting, she's lonely, the future is no known.

This is the lady Mary reflects on.

Yet Hannah's resting in the Lord.

We have this beautiful prayer of Hannah's in 1 Samuel.

And one day Hannah's prayers are answered, and Hannah gives birth to Samuel, the prophet.

Mary knows this story.

Mary's relating to Hannah in some way.

These feelings and yet this faith, this love of God.

1 Samuel 2, 1 and 2, this is just two verses of Hannah's prayer.

And Hannah prayed and said, My heart exalts in the Lord.

My horn is exalted in the Lord.

My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.

Now that's the kind of religious jargon, if we just read it, it just sounds like religious jargon, right?

But if you think about her context, her story, if you imagine what it would feel like if you had feelings like that, a circumstance like that.

And to be able to say something like that.

So Hannah has nothing.

Hanna has nothing.

But Hannah has God.

To quote rapper Lecrae, and this is just me even quoting is an offense to hip-hop, but I'm gonna go for it.

Being broke in this thing don't sit right.

It's an offense, I know.

To hip-hop, not to anything else.

Do it for my folk trying to get by.

I came through the struggle with my head high.

You being broke think you know what it feels like.

Being broke made me rich.

Being broke made me rich.

Being broke made me rich.

Being broke made me rich.

He's trying to, he repeated it.

I'm not just making that.

I think he's making a point.

Do you know what the point would be?

Being broke made me rich.

Y'all should pick up on that quicker.

See, under all the coping and controlling and escaping and self-righteousness projects, I'm broke.

Just means I need God.

I need his grace to me.

And then there's a revelation, right?

We all have a revelation, and that is I'm finally tired.

Like I'm tired of trying to escape.

I'm tired of trying to be self-righteous enough.

I'm tired of trying to control.

I'm tired of trying to be my own savior.

I'm tired of trying to generate my own love.

You know, for that one family member you're about to see this week?

Right?

That one.

You know, as soon as I say it.

You've been trying to generate love for that one for years.

You can't.

You've been trying to generate forgiveness for that one family member you're gonna see this week.

And you're just so tired, right?

So so tiring to try to do that out of your own self.

And then we realize, oh, the love of God comes into that.

Like meets you there.

And then we get, oh, okay, I start to understand Hannah.

That's what Hannah knows.

That's what Mary knows.

That it's God's delight to love you in your weakness.

That's what Paul said in the New Testament.

That he found his strength in his own weakness because Christ loved him in his weakness.

Right?

At just the right time, Christ died for us when we were sinners, not when we had our acts together.

It's this sort of love that pursues us in that.

All of a sudden, all of a sudden, the idea of obligation to God goes away.

It becomes delight.

Verse 50 of Mary's Psalm.

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.

Last point we embrace our lowliness, but we sing of his goodness.

Two weeks ago I listened to a This American Life podcast on birds.

I didn't think it was that great, but uh Christy sent it to me, and so felt obligated there, but out of love, I did it delightfully.

And so then it got good.

You know, like the thing that you hesitate if somebody sends it to you, you're like, I gotta do that, and then you're like, oh, this is good.

One segment was on spark birds.

Anybody have a birder?

You're willing to confess that publicly?

I didn't think so.

Even if you were, you weren't gonna confess it publicly.

What let me feel you know, a spark bird is the bird that a birder is so captivated by, for some reason, they see this one bird, and it captivates them unto conversion into being a birder.

Like that's what a spark bird is.

It's the bird that, for whatever reason, it just astonishes them.

And this one bird, and every birder has a spark bird.

You don't know this because you're not a birder, right?

I'm not a birder.

I don't I haven't had a spark bird.

Okay, you're not birders because you haven't had a spark bird, okay?

But birders know this.

Birders know this.

My friend Michelle is a birder.

I can report back to you, she's also normal, which I didn't know until I knew Michelle, and I know that she's a birder.

When our friend group goes on trips, Michelle takes binoculars.

And we're sitting around a pool, and she is in this otherly magical world with her binoculars.

And we're just morons talking about 80s Christian rock bands.

Like that's what's going on here.

This is the world she lives in, this is the world we live in.

Her spark bird, here's her spark bird.

The painted bunting.

So she remembers the first time she saw it and it's a spark.

She became a bird.

Like I said, you're not a bird.

You haven't had a spark bird yet.

Okay.

I had anything.

I saw two blue jays this morning on my walk.

Kind of wondered.

It's like, I was like, nope, not doing it.

But Michelle was hit by that painted bunting, okay?

Now think about Mary.

She knew something.

She had a spark.

I mean, for her to say something like, I am the servant of the Lord, like, okay, I'm gonna miraculously become pregnant as a virgin.

There's huge social ramifications, there's gonna be a lot of rejection and loneliness.

I can't you can't even imagine, right?

And for her to say, let it be.

I'm open-handed.

May it be.

She she had a spark, and the spark was she heard something.

It was in the text.

You are greatly favored.

For me, this week, thinking about this, the life application that came to me was first like to be able to live with an open-handedness with our futures as we trust him.

And the second is to worship, because that was her response, to worship even when circumstances are unknown.

I mean, there's all that research about like you can't be grateful and worry at the same time.

I don't know how that works out because I feel like I can almost do that.

Like, I can almost do it.

So I'm like, I see her through research, but I'm like, pretty sure I've done it before, like worry and be thankful.

But I do know this, I see Mary, um, and I do know so many times in my life when stuff's swirling around and you worship, and it doesn't fix everything.

It doesn't fix everything, but it does something to your heart, like the tightening, the tight parts of your heart loosen up a little bit.

Mary and Hannah are aspiring to us like this, aren't they?

That they both do this.

This is both their response.

This is their way through.

This is their way through.

Most of the time in this poem, Mary's just describing how good God is, just in general.

And we can look at it.

Verse 47, God my Savior, 48, He has looked on me.

49, for He is mighty, holy is His name.

Fifty, 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.

And maybe you would say, great, but I'm nothing like Hannah.

Like you don't even know.

I'm nothing like Mary.

Like, like you're lucky I'm here, right?

Like, I mean, maybe that would be you.

Well, Mary knew all her courage, like that strength, the surrender, the obedience, the worship, all that that feels like fire to us.

Like it's so impressive.

It all came from a spark.

That came to her.

God's grace to her, because she heard the voice of God.

She heard the voice of God.

Don't be afraid.

You are greatly favored.

So being loved by Him, favored by Him, that changes everything else.

It fuels our response.

When we get that, everything else begins to reordinate itself.

But of course, you already know this.

Because maybe you fell in love once.

Right?

And as soon as you fell in love, that changed everything else.

Because suddenly you could drive three hours for like a one-hour dinner at Wendy's.

And the dollar menu was never so good, right?

And you it didn't even bother you.

You just did it.

Or you drove 20 hours for a weekend with her.

Or you took a second job.

Or you learned to make the bed.

You didn't think that would happen, but you did it.

Or you learned to ease up a little bit.

There's lighting out.

Don't make the bed.

You learn to save money.

Or you learn to spend money.

Just because of love.

Love produced that.

You learn to be on time.

You learn to be flexible.

You learn to share your feelings.

You learn to listen.

I mean, all because of love, this gets generated, produced, empowered inside of us.

But we know that because we've experienced that, we've seen it.

Love changes everything else.

It reorients everything else.

So we have this baby born, this Messiah, God Himself, who came to love and save all sinners.

Love us.

He taught us.

He lived the righteous life that we don't always live.

And on the cross, all of our sins, all of our mistakes, our guilt and our shame is put upon him, and his righteousness is given to us, so we are forever his beloved.

We're forever loved.

And in his grace, you hear it.

And hopefully you hear it like a spark bird.

That you are greatly favored.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace to us.

That in Jesus, in the cross, we have a forever message that we are favored to you, not because of our performance or our record, but because of your grace to us.

May we understand in greater and greater ways that your love meets us in all of our hurt, pain, doubt, confusion, uncertainty, loneliness, rejection, failure, mistakes, guilt, shame.

Help us to trust in you in greater ways, to learn to walk with you in greater ways.

May our love be fueled by your love to us in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.