The Son of Man // Mary’s Song of Joy [Luke 1:39-56] (Billy Hanna)

Father, as we have had this opportunity to express this

morning, we give you all the praise and the glory because You

are the one that is worthy of it all.

You're the one that has redeemed our lives from the pit and as we

come this morning and we make our small sacrifices back to you

that sometimes feel heavy for us.

And yet, Lords, it's all yours in the 1st place.

You are the one that has blessed us and entrusted us with our

finances. You've entrusted us with our

skills and abilities, and Lord God, we just want to offer that

back to you this morning. Would your name be glorified

through the small sacrifices that we get to make?

Lord? Would those sacrifices that we

make it to be a joy for each of us that although it does at

times feel like a sacrifice, that it wouldn't remain that,

but would joyfully hand back to you all that you've entrusted to

us and that your name would be glorified because of it?

Father God, we pray this morning for our children.

We thank you for the blessing that they are.

We thank you for their open hearts and their willingness to

to look at you with all simplicity and the amount that

they can actually understand and absorb.

And so we pray for our Sunday School teachers this morning

that you give them wisdom, discernment as they share truth

from your word to our young kids.

And Father God, this morning we pray for Billy.

We commit him into your hands as he comes and opens your word.

Would you speak powerfully through him?

Would you use him for your honour and glory?

This morning we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

Good to see you this morning. Would you open with me to the

Book of Luke Chapter 1 this morning?

Luke 1 · chapter mention

We are gonna be looking at versus 39 through 56 Mary Song

of Praise, and we're just gonna read that together.

So I'll read that for us before we jump into it this morning.

Let's read the word of the Lord starting in verse 39.

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the Hill

Country to a town in Judah, and she entered the House of

Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the

greeting of Miri, the baby leaped in her womb, and

Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed

with a loud cry. Blessed are you among women, and

blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And why is this granted to me, that the Mother of my Lord

should come to me? For behold, when the sound of

your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for

joy and bliss. It is she who believed that

there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the

Lord. And Murray said, My soul

magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my

Saviour. 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 wholly

is His name, and His mercy is for those who fear Him.

From generation to generation He has shown strength.

With His arm He scattered the proud and 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 is 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.

And Mary remained with her about 3 months and returned to her

home. I mean, well, we're continuing

in our series through the book of Luke, so we're still in

chapter 1. You'll remember Luke is the

longest gospel that has written to a man named Theophilus,

likely a Roman governor. And and it's written to give him

certainty about the things he'd been taught about Christ.

And all throughout Luke is trying to show him who Christ is

and how Theophilus, this Roman governor, this outsider to the

Christian faith can have certainty about who Christ is

and have certainty about the Christian faith, certainty about

the gospel. And so chapters one through 3

really is showing the birth stories, the birth narratives of

two people of John the Baptist and of Jesus Christ.

And, and you'll see and you, you will have been seeing already as

we go through these narratives are kind of shown side by side.

So, so that the camera flips from John to Jesus.

Jeff preached a few weeks ago of the four telling to Zechariah of

the birth of John the Baptist. And then last week, Sam showed

us the foretelling to Miri of the birth of Jesus Christ.

And that theme is going to continue over the next few

chapters where we see their births shown in parallel as

well. And all of that is really trying

to show us their different roles.

John the Baptist came to be a forerunner to pave the way for

Jesus, and Jesus himself is the fulfilment.

He is the one that Israel and the world has been waiting for.

So we have the the stories of the 4 runner and the fulfilment.

And when we come to this morning in these verses, for a moment,

these two stories intertwine the two different storylines we've

had come into one, and we're merely comes to see Elizabeth.

We see that in verse 39 Mary comes to see Elizabeth because

what was said in verse 36, we Mary's told as a part of this

promise from the Angel. Your relative Elizabeth in her

old age has also conceived a son, and this is the six month

which with her, who was called Baron for nothing will be

impossible with God. And so Miri was told by this

Angel as a part of this promise that she is pregnant, although

she is a virgin with the Messiah.

Part of the basis of that promise is your relative

Elizabeth, although she's old and although she's barren, she

is pregnant as well. Nothing is impossible with God.

And so Merry comes now and verse 39 to see Elizabeth, She's

coming to see God's promise with her own eyes.

And this is part of the promise that Mary has been told.

And immediately she gets this confirmation.

She gets it in a few ways. Firstly, verse 41, it says in

Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary the baby John, John the

Baptist leaped in her womb already.

I mean we just mentioned before we're told John the Baptist has

this role of going before Jesus Christ paving the way, showing

people that that someone greater is coming here.

We already have John the Baptist fulfilling his role even in the

womb, attesting to the fact that Jesus is there.

And that's really interesting. Even when we look back at Luke

chapter one, verse 15, when Zechariah is as being foretold

about the birth of John the Baptist, he's told that John the

Baptist would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his

mother's womb. And so here we have John the

Baptist, or really already fulfilling his role, that that's

already one element of confirmation for Mary.

But then what we see happen is Elizabeth was filled with the

Holy Spirit and begins to speak. Saying that she's filled with

the Holy Spirit is telling us that what she's about to say is

important and what she's about to say is true.

And we see what she says to her. She says, Blessed are you among

women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

Why is it granted to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to

me? For behold, when the sound of

your greeting came to my ears, the baby and my womb leaped for

joy. And blessed as she who believed

that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from

the Lord. These words from Elizabeth are

really gonna act as an introduction to the setting.

And also Miri song of praise. That's incredible.

Here Elizabeth seemed to divinely understand what had

happened to Mary. There's no record of a

conversation where Mary said what happened.

Elizabeth understands and knows what has happened to Miri.

And then she declares twice that Miri is blissed.

So you see in verse 42, blessed are U.

And then verse 45, blessed as she.

Those are two different Greek words there.

For blessed. The first one, verse 42, is

saying that you have been shown favour.

Blessed are you. You have been shown favour.

You've been shown a gift from God and in verse 45, blessed as

more connotation, a happy and joyful are you?

And so it's clear that Elizabeth understands what we're gonna

come back to these verses a little bit more throughout.

But Elizabeth understands from the forefront here that what has

happened to Miri as firstly, it's a gift from God.

This is an act of of favour and grace from God.

And secondly, this is something that would be making marriage so

joyful. So we have this joyful

exclamation from Elizabeth, and then as we just read Mary, she

jumps and she leaps into this song of praise.

And that's really the tone of this passage.

I just want to put this for a minute in context of Mary's

situation, especially her social situation.

Sam spoke last week about Miri's social status.

She had no real notoriety. She was a young woman, maybe 13

or 14 from what we can understand.

No notoriety, no status. She was a female in a small town

and Nazareth not a well known town.

Whatever her social status was already very lowly, it just took

a big hit amongst the Jewish culture.

She was pregnant before marriage and I'm sure she had a tough

time explaining to her family that she is both a virgin and

pregnant. Her social status would have

just taken a big hit. Ostracised from her family, from

her community. We know from Matthew, before

Joseph himself was visited by an Angel, he had resolved to

quietly divorce Mary because he assumed that there was some sort

of adultery going on. Mary's life on the surface, it

just got significantly harder. She is young, she is pregnant,

she is ostracised from her community.

And yet we have here in this passage Elizabeth calling her

Blist, joyful, blissed from God. And then Miri is going to cry

out in this song of praise. And the question I want to ask

this morning as we come and unpack the song from Miri.

Why did Miri praise God? Why did she praise God?

And that question is going to be answered as we go through and

unpack this song. Because let me tell you, on the

surface it seems a confusing thing that Mary is singing out

in this joyful phrase. I think there's a lot for us to

learn and I wanna highlight three things as we go through.

And I understand and ask the question, why was Miri praising

God here? Firstly, Miri praises God

because He has blessed her despite her low status.

We'll start with verse 46 and 47 as they really set the theme,

set the tone. Mary says My soul magnifies the

Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour us since the the

tone. This is a song of praise.

These are notice these are parallel sentences.

Here my soul magnifies my spirit, rejoices her soul and

her spirit. This is really Speaking of every

element of her, of her inner being, and she is magnifying and

rejoicing. To magnify this song would often

be called the Magnificat. That's the Latin word for

magnify. To magnify is to make great as

to glorify the name of God and to rejoice.

We know what that means. It's to delight in God.

And we just saw that with what Elizabeth was saying, Mary's

confirming it straight away. This is a posture of joyful,

delighted praise. Miri is delighted to be praising

God. This isn't begrudging.

This isn't confused, I mean we've seen some psalms even when

those are in suffering they're calling out.

Where are you? Ohh, God or you'd say in and

Job, Job, he's still praising God that you can tell and the

way he's he's crying out, he's hurting and his situation.

We don't get that tone from Miri in this.

Miri is seeing a situation and she's saying this is joyful.

That says blessed. I am praising God here.

She's genuinely joyful and her praise why think first?

48 summarises it. 4 Because he has looked upon the humble

estate of his servant. That is why.

A humble estate. That word is literally Speaking

of her social status of of her standing before others in her

community, her standing socially, and the pecking order.

God has looked upon her humble estate and at the core of Mary's

praise as this Although the world views me as lowly, as

insignificant, although those in my community view me as an

outcast, God has looked upon me with favour.

God has looked upon me with love.

Miri praises God because God does not view her through the

world's categories. And that's going to be at the

heart of this song. She continues on second-half of

this. 48 Full behold, From now on all generations will call me

blessed, for He who is mighty has done great things for me and

wholly is His name. Mary sees that God has done

great things despite her her low social status.

God has let her beer the the Messiah.

Mary praises God because she plays a role in what God is

doing in the world. God is using her as a vessel to

bring about great things and she views that as a gift.

Notice in these verses, God is the one who's acting here.

Everything here is God at work. He has looked, He has done great

things. Holy is his name.

And you notice that same tone even in what Elizabeth says in

the earlier verses. Elizabeth is always praising God

for what he has done through Mary because she says when she

says blessed are you among woman, she sees blessed is the

fruit of your womb as she's honoured that Mary comes, but

not because of Mary but because of the fruit of her womb,

because the mother of my Lord should come to me.

In fact, the only thing that Miri did, according to Elizabeth

verse 45, is believe she believed she was willing, and

Sam closed with that last week. Mary's response to this Behold,

I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me.

According to your word, Miri is praising God because He has

flipped the social status. She understands where she stood,

but she sees now through the eyes of God how He is treating

her. I'm the youngest of six kids.

Any other youngest here? Yeah, we're going to stick

together. I mean, growing up and my

siblings would probably say I was spoiled, but that was

probably when they all left home.

I got spoiled. But growing up, when you got six

kids in the home and you're the youngest, you're at the bottom

of the pecking order. Never sit in the front seat.

You know you're last in line to get any of the the leftovers at

the dinner table. You don't get the TV remote.

All of these things, you kind of knew where you stood.

But when it was your birthday, all the things got flipped.

Dad makes you poached eggs on toast.

You get to pick what's on TV. You get to sit in front of the

car. You kind of realise that the

social status for one day has been flipped.

But it was sweeter because I knew I recognised I was at the

the bottom of the pecking order. But on one day a year that would

be flipped. And then it got flipped when

they all moved out and it was just me and mum and dad.

A mirror here. She knows where she stands in

the eyes of the world and she sees this favour from God and it

is sweet and the eyes of God. God doesn't view me like the

world views me. Let's keep reading.

We're gonna read verse 50 to 53. And as we read, I just want you

to notice how the language changes from being individual,

from being personal to being a corporate.

There's 50 And His mercy is for those who fear Him.

From generation to generation He has shown strength.

With His arm He scattered the proud and the thoughts of their

hearts. He has brought down the mighty

from their Thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

He's filled the hungry with good things and the rich.

He is sent away empty. I just want to note here.

Secondly, Miri praises God because His blessing is not

exclusive to her. Meri praises God because His

blessing is not exclusive to her.

Miri Here she turns from declaring what God has done to

her and highlights how this is not only for her.

Rather, what is going on here is a reflection of God's character,

a reflection of how God works here.

He says. Here I am but one example of a

lowly servant who has been blessed by God.

And as I highlighted before, we see the language here has

changed from personal from her talking about herself to more

corporate general language. Here she's talking about this is

what God does. And God's economy, the the

social status is flipped. The way the world views us is

not the way God views us. Miri is an example of that, but

she's not the only one. This is what this is saying.

And this is going to be a key theme in Luke as we continue to

go through. We're going to see this theme ou

because you'll remember, and I mentioned at the start,

Theophilus who who this book was written to, written for what was

a Roman, likely an outsider and a largely Jewish faith.

And it could be easy for him to wonder, do I fit in?

I'm an outcast here. Well, Luke highlights the

outcast. It highlights many social

outcasts, especially in this time we see the prominent role

that women play. Outsiders are welcomed, the way

tax collectors, social outcasts are spoken of in the book of

Luke. We're going to notice that as we

go through. And so how does God view things?

We see that the proud are scattered, the mighty are

brought down, and the rich are sent away empty.

Yet those who fear God are shown mercy.

The humble are exalted, and the hungry are filled.

And, and just take a moment to consider how countercultural

this is. We live in a culture, whether

it's overt or whether it's under the surface.

Exalts the mighty, Exalts the rich, exalts the proud.

We live in a culture that loves to exalt the the American Dream

or success stories of those who started from nothing and became

billionaires. Whether it's overt, as I said,

or whether it's subtle, at the core of this and in our culture

and, and, and in so many of our hearts is a desire to be

elevated in the view of others, a desire to be approved by men.

Many of us remember our days in high school where the social

pecking order was very large. That's what drove a lot of

things in high school. But it happens whether we're in

the corporate world and we're consumed with the next promotion

or status or raise, or whether we're a parent and we find

ourselves looking to other parents and evaluating are we

better parents than them? This is something that philtres

into every relationship, constantly wanting the approval

of others, our boss, our spouse, our friends and his incredible

book When People are big and God are Small.

Edward Welch, He defines this as the fear of man.

He says this The fear of man can be summarised in this way.

We replace God with people. Instead of a biblically guided

fear of the Lord, we fear others.

Whether we realise it or or not, many of us desire to be mighty.

We desire to be rich. We desire to be great in the

eyes of the world. And when we're desiring that, it

blinds us to our need to be humble before God.

It blinds us of our need for God.

John Piper puts it this way. God is not partial to the rich,

the powerful, or the proud. How could God be partial to the

things which in our world are more often than not substitutes

for God rather than pointers to God?

Mary is saying here we we must be captured by a fear of God,

not by a fear of others, because God does not care about wealth.

God does not care about status. He will scatter the proud.

He will bring down the mighty. He will send away the rich and

this is a theme that we see all through Scripture and I don't

have time to go everywhere, but even just highlighting a few

verses David says and Sam 1827 for you save a humble people,

but the haughty eyes you bring down Jesus himself.

Later in Luke and Luke chapter 18 is going to tell this parable

Luke 18 · chapter mention

about a Pharisee and a tax collector who both go into the

temple to pray. You have a Pharisee who who's a

religious elite and you have a tax collector who is a social

outcast. And the Pharisee comes in any

any praise before God and he says thank you, God, thank you

that I'm not like this tax collector.

I come, I pray three times a day, I tithe a 10th of

everything I get. And the tax collector comes and

he kneels down on his knees, beats his chest and cries out to

God. God be merciful to me, a Sinner.

And Jesus says only one of those men left that temple justified.

And he sees this in Luke 1814. For everyone who exalts himself

will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

And that's not saying that every humble person will be saved, and

every rich person or every powerful person will not be

saved. That's not what this is saying,

but this is saying to be saved we need to humble ourselves

before God. And often the biggest barrier to

that is that we don't see the need for that because we are so

consumed by status or riches in the eyes of the world, we must

humble ourselves before God. God does not value money or

power or status, but rather the one who will humbly fear God in

belief. Thirdly, Miri praises God

because He has brought the Messiah, viz 4445.

He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy as

He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to His offspring

forever. Those can be some confusing

verses, but what Miri is doing here is she's putting the

situation that she has found herself in, pregnant with this

man named Jesus Christ. And she's putting it on in the

context of the whole Bible. She's putting it in the context

of the whole story of the Old Testament, as she's referring to

Abraham, referring to God's promises to Israel.

Throughout the Old Testament, God made promises to his people,

Israel, that one day one would come.

One would come who would be their Messiah, their Saviour.

One would come to provide salvation.

And Daniel showed us earlier how the Old Testament continues to

point forward to that. That One will come as a perfect

sacrifice to take away sin, to pay the price for some.

And so Muri actually understands here that what God is doing is a

fulfilment of what He has promised Israel.

Many of us are familiar with that song.

Mary, Did You Know? I think we can say yes.

Murray knew she's she's recognising here that God is

doing something great through this baby in her womb.

And I want you to see the progression throughout the song

of Mary. She's saying God, you're doing

something great for me. You have blessed me, you've

shown me favour and this is how you work.

And then she she brings it full picture here and she's going and

you were bringing this about through this baby that is in my

womb that the promised Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of the

world because really that that baby and and Mary's womb Jesus,

he he is ultimately the reason why God can accept the lowly,

the outcast. Many of us are familiar with

Paul's words and Philippians chapter 2 where he talks about

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Jesus Christ. Although he was in the form of

God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be, to be

grasped, to be held onto. But he emptied himself, taking

the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men.

Christ himself. Although he he was God, he

became lowly. He was born and and lowly means,

as we'll see in a couple of weeks.

He was born to a lonely woman from a lonely town and his

ministry he associated with and he loved the lowly, the the

social outcast. He showed them love, he showed

them grace. And ultimately he humbled

himself to the most lowly, humiliating form of execution on

a Roman cross where he hung, He suffered, He bled, He died naked

in front of all as a perceived criminal.

And he hung there and he blared and he suffered so that all who

are lowly, all who are humble, all who are outcast can kneel

before him, believing in him for the forgiveness of sins.

That's the gospel. That's the Christian message.

Pull says this and 2nd Corinthians 8 verse 9.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though

he was rich, yet for your sake became poor, so that you by his

poverty might become rich. God can flip social status

because it was flipped on His own Son in the most incredible

way. God can look to this lowly

outcast named Mary and shower grace on her because the very

baby in her womb. Although he was God, he was

treated as a criminal. His coming as a a fulfilment for

Israel is coming as as hope for us.

So as we close, come to the end of this song from Mary, I just

want to close with a warning and a comfort.

A warning and a comfort warning. The approval of man is

dangerous. The approval of man is

dangerous. As we talk about what it means

to find favour with God, we need to consider the danger of

seeking favour, seeking approval from men.

And this is a warning fee. Every single one of us.

I think for many of us, in some way we are either rich, wealthy,

in a position of power, or we wish we were in some way.

And and at the core, as I see it, these are not bad things,

but they must come with a warning.

Whose approval do we pursue? Whose approval do we desire?

Do we long for, and are we willing to lay aside the

approval of man to humble ourselves before God?

We have to believe this would have been a temptation for

Theophilus. A Roman governor certainly had

access to wealth, power, status. It's the temptation for us, but

I think we also need to recognise that that we often

look at this and we say yes, that that's the world's culture,

that's how the world views it. It's inevitable that culture of

the world seeps into the church and and, and and the culture of

the church. Success may not be money or a

job or a status. Success might be people we

disciple, the sermons we preach, the Bible knowledge we have.

And although those are are good things, we we can often want to

exalt ourselves before others, even in the church.

And that's when I'm speaking to myself right now.

This is a it's a dangerous. It's a warning for all of us.

Do we desire to be approved by each other, or do we desire to

be found humble before God? The approval of men is

dangerous. God desires a humble heart.

God desires people who will recognise their need for Him.

And so my homework from this point, I will give homework this

week. My challenge to you everyone is

at some point this week, meditate and sit with Psalm 73.

Psalm 73 This is where the psalmist at the first half of

the Psalm looks at the world. He looks at the wealthy, looks

at the powerful, looks at the rich, and laments that the rich

seem to be thriving and prosperous and it's so easy for

them. And then there's a hinge in in

the middle of the Sam when the psalmist comes into the

sanctuary of the Lord and discerns therein.

We're given 2 perspectives there.

Blessing of man, blessing of the world is not all that it seems.

And so this week spent some time considering Psalm 73.

It's our warning, and we're finished with the comfort.

Our comfort is that God's blessing is open to the humble,

and this is a comfort for all who like Merry, feel outcast,

feel lonely, feel insignificant, feel and acceptable.

God's blessing is open through the humble in the comfort is

that the world standards are not God's standards.

Blessing in the world does not equal blessing with God.

In God's Kingdom, the low are brought high, the downtrodden

are lifting up, the hungrier feared, the outcast are

welcomed. For me, this has been my biggest

comfort in the past six months. It's a comfort because we find

ourselves looking to other people to give us approval, to

give us this desire of what we need.

This is telling us it's a comfort.

It's saying stop. Stop looking to the world for

affirmation. Stop looking to the world for

approval. Look to God.

Humble yourself, wrist and His grace.

Because of what His Son has done, we can be found acceptable

in the eyes of God. That is a a comfort so we can

find comfort that through this lowly and significant woman in

the eyes of the world, God brought about His Son season

verse 52. He has brought down the mighty

from their Thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

Let's pray, shall we? Lord God, we just want to come

to you now and thank you for your goodness.

I thank you for your Son. Because of what Christ did,

because of how He humbled himself.

Lord, we can be found or righteous before you.

Thank you that you do not view success and the way the world

views success. And so my prayer for all of us

this morning is that we may just be able to reflect and consider

how you use this woman, Mary, and how that shows, Lord, the

way that you work for each person here, whether they need

the warning or they need their comfort.

Lord, I pray that you would just lay that on their heart to

understand the way that you work and just be amazed by your

grace. Lord, we thank you for these

things in Jesus name, Amen.