She sings of God's faithfulness, and then ultimately of a coming Messiah that she needs. All of this, no doubt, was impromptu. This just came out of her heart. It's always natural to worship when God begins to speak, or when God makes things clear. ♪ I love you in your grace ♪ ♪ You are your end on me ♪ ♪ And all that I do, Lord ♪ ♪ Love will keep me strong ♪ ♪ I love you in your grace ♪ You're listening to Growing Through Grace with Pastor Jackabellum, a Morningstar Christian chapel in Whittier, California. Two Singing Mothers to Be. That's the title of our current study as we pick up where we left off last time in Luke 1, verses 39 through 56. Pastor Jack has been discussing the confirmation that Mary got from her relative Elizabeth, as the Holy Spirit reveals to her that the fruit of Mary's womb was indeed blessed. And the two of them go on to sing praises to the Lord. Here's Pastor Jack with the conclusion of this message. So verse 44 says, "Indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby leaped at my womb for joy, blessed is she who believed. For there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her by the Lord." But note the emphasis is on blessed are those who believed. Years from now, there will be some, actually, a woman, I think it says on Luke, in the crowd who, when Jesus began to speak, yelled out, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you." And Jesus' reply to this woman in the crowd was, "More than that, blessed are those who hear God's word and keep it." Well, that's Mary's emblem, right? That's her distinguishing mark. God had chosen her, but her distinguishing mark, because she believed what God had told her and acted accordingly. Furthermore, Mary not only sees Elizabeth, doesn't see only Mary pregnant, but notice she identifies this woman, this baby in the womb as the Lord. Verse 43, "Why should the mother of my Lord come to me?" I think it would have just been, Mary just gone, "My goodness, God has gone before." Confirmation, I should say, of God's intentions always strengthens our faith, doesn't it? When you're just praying and the Lord shows you that this is indeed the way you should go, I remember being called to leave down a cavalry where I was an assistant pastor for many years to come out here to start a church. And I really felt like that was the right thing to do. My wife thought it was the right thing as well. But no one else thought it was the right thing to do. We literally got, "What's wrong with you?" And yet, when you just know that the Lord has called you, you try to go with it. It wasn't easy when you don't have a lot of high fods, just a lot of bad ideas. But I thought about that gentleman there in Mark, I think it's in Matthew. No, it's in Mark chapter 8, I think. And that showed up blind one day asking Jesus there in Bethsaida to touch him. And he took him outside of town away from everybody. And he spit into his eyes. I thought, "Well, what are you doing?" And then he said, "Do you see anything?" And the man opened his eyes and he said, "I see men like trees walking." And he put his hands on his eyes again and he made him look up. And then he says, "How about now?" And he saw as clearly as day. And it's one of those examples of the Lord taking you kind of through things one step at a time. You may not have fully the confidence in everything, but you want to trust God and you want to believe that you're following His direction. And so, here's Mary. Do it with me what you like. And now he takes her to Elizabeth. And now she hears words that could only strengthen her trust in her faith in the Lord. God has a way of encouraging our faith. Whether he's spitting in your eye or making you walk 90 miles to go see your cousin. Not that we should be sign seekers, but we should be able to see God confirm when we are seeking His direction. Meanwhile, we read that John the Baptist did more than roll over in the womb. He leapt for joy. He leapt for joy. David wrote, "I was cast upon you from my birth from my mother's womb. He bent my God." The Lord had his hand upon this man, and already he was reacting to the forerunner that he would be. He jumps for joy. This is the one. And like I said, in verse 45, I think the lesson is Mary believed God. She just believed the Lord. This was strength, faith strengthening. I remember reading back in chapter 15 of Genesis when the Lord made those great promises to Abraham. And he finally took him outside and said, "I looked at the heavens and count the stars if you're able to number them, and those will be your descendants." And, you know, like the sky, there's a million stars. And then you read, "And he believed the Lord, and God had it to him for righteousness." It is important we notice that Mary believed before it happened, while it was happening, because she was told it would happen. But this had never happened. A virgin will conceive. Okay, yeah, that's easy to believe. I can watch onto that. In fact, last week, she had willingly said, "Do what you want." But all of these words from Elizabeth came before Mary. Could say anything but, "Hello, I'm here." She just said, "Hey, Elizabeth, it's Mary." Mary went, and then Elizabeth went off. Elizabeth was being such a help. Wasn't she? I mean, you just look at all that came out of her mouth. How helpful it was to her faith. As opposed to just paint the picture here, Zacharias sitting on the couch, unable to speak. He wasn't much of a help. Elizabeth can't quiet down. "Oh, the Lord is moving. God's doing the great." And Zachari, once the example of believing the other unbelievable, I love the picture. Believing, though, verse 45, is a blessed state. Blessed are you when you come to that place when you can believe and trust in the Lord. Followed right to the Hebrews in chapter 4 verse 1. "There is a promise made to us that we can enter into his rest." I would fear lest any of you would somehow fall short of it. Or what David wrote in Psalm 37, "Commit your ways to the Lord. Trust in him, he'll bring it to pass." So this is Mary's testimony. She had great faith. In fact, it must have seemed to her a bit like a dream world. Yet all of these words that she had heard were strengthening her feet. Her stance, if you will. Finally, Elizabeth is done. And so Mary responds. Verse 36 down through verse 56, where we'll stop this morning. Her response is sometimes called the Magnificate. The word Magnificate is a Latin word that means to magnify or to praise the Lord, if you will. It is a chorus of praise and of worship. She mentions her lowly condition. She broadens her praise that God has always been gracious to every generation. She makes the difference between the righteous and the wicked. She sings of God's faithfulness and then ultimately a big common Messiah that she needs. All of this, no doubt, was impromptu. I don't think she said, "Let me go back in the back room and write a song. I'll be out in a little bit." This just came out of her heart. This came out of a heart that was just confronted with, "Hey, your faith is right." And the angel was telling you the truth and this is really happening. It's always natural to worship when God begins to speak. Or when God makes things clear. Don't you feel like that? The Lord, oh, thank you Lord. Now, I'm so glad I went this direction. I thought about Moses and the people on the other side of the Red Sea when the Egyptians drowned and you read there in Exodus 15. They sang. Again, nobody was writing songs. They just sang in worship. In Judges chapter 5, when Deborah and Barak sang a duet to the Lord for his deliverance there, or solid at the dedication of the simple. In 2 Chronicles 5, I think, he begins to just worship the Lord as a response to God's goodness as he saw the cloud from the Lord descending upon the temple. Paul and Silas in jail and Philippi at midnight began to worship. And God delivered them. Read Revelation 5. There's a lot of worship in heaven. If you don't like singing, you're not going to like heaven too much. There's a lot of that going on. In fact, I would say God's blessing causes singing. And so how you sing might very well reflect how much you've been blessed. Or at least you're realizing that you have. So Mary begins in verse 36, and she says, "My soul magnifies the Lord. And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant. For behold, henceforth all of the generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name." Mary is never the central theme in the Bible. In fact, every time you meet her, you will find her in a position of humility, trusting in the Lord and focusing upon Jesus in his words. So if you want to follow her example, do that. Notice in verse 47 that Mary, in her spirit, rejoices in God, but calls him her Savior. In other words, the salvation that the Lord was going to bring through the sun in her womb, she also needed as well. Would she be aware at this point of how he was going to save the world? Absolutely not. I don't think so. I mean, the nation itself did never put those things together until the Lord showed himself, or showed himself. She's not aware of what it will take to save man. She's not aware of the sorrow. She's going to have to carry in her heart. She's not aware of having to stand at the cross and watch her sun murdered. But it will all be clear eventually, but by then God's development of her faith in him will be strong. She'll make it. Notice in verse 48 and in verse 49 that Mary was well aware of her own condition. She had been exalted to a place that she realized everyone else would say, "That's a blessed place for you to stand or to have been picked." But she realizes who's holy, and it's not her. Notice she says of the Lord, "He's holy. He's holy. Holy is His name. He's done these great things for me. It's not me. It's him doing them for me." Mary does not feel, and nor will she ever say in the scriptures that she deserved this place of great blessing. What she will say is, "Thank God that he has chosen me." Mary and Joseph were extremely poor. They lived in a place that was despised by the nation as a whole. When they came to offer the sacrifice of a firstborn here in a little bit, you're supposed to bring a lamb for a burnt offering as well as turtle desert pigeons for a sin offering, but they were too poor to even put that together. So they brought the least because that's all that they had. And that's exactly what Joseph and Mary had, very little. If you were God and choosing a place to send your son to choose a home for him, to place him in a neighborhood where he could grow up with a family that could support him, who and where would you choose? I think Mary and Joseph, probably from a human standpoint, would never have made the list. I'm sure Mary was an unlikely candidate due to her means, but absolutely a likely candidate in terms of her heart. And isn't that always the way God works? He chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He chooses the poor and the weak to confound the mighty, something or someone who has nothing so he can be honored and nobody else. It is a way of the Lord. Samuel was told to pick David, the runt, the one whose dad was so lacking confidence and he didn't bring him in with the rest of the boys into the house. God picked Paul with his background, picked Peter with his backgrounds of denials and shooting his mouth out so that he could use the foolish to confound the wise. Mary understood that she stood here only by God's grace. You should understand that you're here by his grace as well. He didn't earn it. You don't deserve it, but aren't you happy you have it? Since it is all by his grace, all of us can be used by God if we will make ourselves available to him. There's that scripture in 1 Corinthians that says that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise and the weak things of the world to put to shame those that are mighty and the base things of the world and those things that are despised, God chooses the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are so that no flesh could glory in his presence even tells you why, so that no one can say I did this on my own because no one would believe that and that's the case with Mary as well. It's almost a paradox. God looks for holiness, no, for might, no, for power, no. He looks for faith and trust. He doesn't look for human wisdom or resources. He just looks for those that are willing. James wrote in chapter 2, "God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom which he's promised to those who love him." So Satan would have you to excuse yourself from availability based simply on a lack of ability. I don't know what to do. I don't have the means. I don't have the stature. I don't have much influence and yet Jesus would come to work in those by his grace who were available. Mary had nothing to offer the Lord, neither do you. And yet in chapter 1 last week, she said, "Just do whatever you want with me." And that's all that God is looking for. If you serve the Lord by looking at your own resources, you will quickly decide otherwise. But if it is him who is willing to work in you, then it's a matter, not of ability, but availability. Are you available? Well, if God wants to do something with the likes of me, go ahead. That's all he wants to hear. And Mary understood that well. Notice in verse 49, "He who is mighty has done great things for me. It's he who is holy, not me. Moses was set down the river and became a deliverer in God's hands. Joseph was sold into slavery by his own family and God raised him up. Daniel, as a young teenager, was taken forcefully into captivity, and God used him mildly over seven years of his incredible service to the Lord. He uses those of low degree. I hear people say to me, "Oh, you know how tough my life is." And my answer would always be good, then God can use you. Because if you run out of strength, his strength begins. Mary says in verse 50 as she sings this song of worship, and his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. You can count on it. Every generation meets the same merciful God. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud and the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lonely. He has filled the hungry with good things while the rich he has sent away, empty. God's choice of those who humble themselves before him is well known in the scriptures. He doesn't use the proud. He raises up the humble, sends away the rich, feeds the hungry. I think we have to realize our need for him before he can use us and realize that it is impossible to feed your soul which is made for eternity with temporal things here. The proud, verse 51, he scatters. You know, most sins require temptations to fall. Pride kind of like feeds like a moth on the grace and the blessings of God. God gives you great things and you take pride in them. The act of pride is not humiliation, just humility. If you see God for who he is and you for who you are, you have to be humble. We learn we're acceptable with the Lord, though on our own we could never have been acceptable with God, but yet the minute we realize who we are, God takes us that way. Isaiah realizes his own inadequacies when he saw the Lord high and lifted up in chapter six and only then did the Lord then say, "Okay, come on, Isaiah, here's what I'm going to do with you." He puts down the mighty from their thrones. He exalts the lowly, feels the hungry with good things, sends the rich away empty. Asaph wrote in Psalm 75, "To the boastful I say, 'Don't be boastful. Don't lift up your horn, don't lift up your horn to be heard on high, don't speak with a stiff neck of exaltation, doesn't come from the east or the west or the north or the south or actually lift up the north, east and the west and the south, but it comes from the north." I guess from the Lord, the judge who can put down one and raise up another. Mary saw it clearly, all right. Notice her maturity and her responses that she sees God right. He's mighty, he's holy. God is not Mary. He's merciful to those who fear him, he has done that in every generation. He'll scatter the proud, he'll strengthen the humble. He'll take out Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh and Sinekhareb and Baltha Jazar, they're powerful world leaders, they didn't last. And if you read carefully through these words that she wrote, there are linked to almost every verse scriptures. This young girl knew the Bible very well. We have a policy here at Morningstar that in our Sunday school from seventh grade to twelfth grade, if your kids go through those classes, they will have been taught the entire Bible in six years. We stake on the schedule, it's just the way it is, God's word, how can you go wrong with that? Well, she certainly had woven into her songs all of those words from the Lord as well. So she knew her word very well. She goes on in verse 54 as we conclude here, "He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers and to Abraham and to his seed, for ever." Israel was promised a Messiah, but God hadn't spoke for 400 years, but now it was about time to have it fulfilled. Abraham, he had said, "I will bless those who bless you, curse those that cursed you, and in you all of the families of the earth would be blessed." Mary's already putting it together in her mind. The promises of God, the choosing by the Lord of her womb to bring forth this Messiah, and I think it just blew her mind. She knew of God's love for his people. By the way, the word servant there in verse 54 is a title for a young son. It's a very endearing term, and Mary uses it of the Lord's love for the people. So we are told Mary then remained with Elizabeth for about three months, that would make her nine months pregnant, and then she would return home. I don't know about the talks they had, must have been amazing. Few people knew this was going on still. Maybe she stayed until John the Baptist was born and helped out. Maybe she left just before because the crowds would have been everywhere. But Mary gets to sit for the next three months and contemplate what the Lord is doing and begin to just get herself ready for what is coming. I'm glad Luke wrote all of these things because you won't find this in any of the other gospels. We're getting like that insight and into the background of what the Lord was doing. Would Mary suffer for her calling? Yep. Will the Holy Spirit confirm your direction as you seek the Lord? He will. God will use you to speak a good word in due season. I always like Elizabeth, she couldn't be more excited, but what she delivered was stuff that Mary needed to hear. I think sometimes you come to church, God needs to use you to speak to someone else who's not going through. Maybe they're going through it. Maybe they're having a hard time. Be that vessel that God can use. But know this, God will use you despite you. Right? You need him. He doesn't need you, but he loves to use you. Good things for all of us to be reminded of as we move forward on the path that the Lord has set before us. We've been listening to a study taken from Luke chapter 1 verses 39 through 56. This has been the third part in conclusion of a three-part study taught by Pastor Jack Abeland. If you like to get the entire message, we do have that available for you. All you need to do to order, simply contact us and ask for study number 42-37. It's always helpful for us to know the radio station that you're listening to, so be sure to mention those call letters when you get a hold of us. And here in the month of June, we're offering in the MP3 format, the Old and New Testament of Pastor Jack's verse by verse study through the entire Bible at a special bundle prize. With over 1,000 studies to listen to, this would make a great gift for anyone on your list or even yourself. So if you'd like to walk with Pastor Jack through the entire Old and New Testament in this MP3 format, you can order this resource or get today's study by dialing our toll-free phone number, that number is 866-88-GRACE, that's 866-884-7223. You can also order by mail, just address your letter to Growing Through Grace, PO Box 1954, would hear California 90609. Or you can get this resource and many others on our website at growingthroughgrace.com. That's growingthroughgrace.com. And if you're ordering by phone, just remember that our Growing Through Grace office hours or Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time. And that's going to wrap up our time together today. We do thank you for being with us, so until next time, as you daily walk with our Lord Jesus Christ, may you continue to grow in His grace. Growing Through Grace is a listener-supported ministry brought to you by Morningstar Christian Chapel in Whittier, California, a coverage apple outreach. [MUSIC PLAYING]
