The Magnificat
(This is a sermon transcript, it may contain small inaccuracies.)
Well, we come to Luke 1 this morning, and step aside for a season from the Gospel of John. The passage we're going to look at is one of four songs in the earlier part of the Gospel of Luke that deal with the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. And throughout history, these four songs have been put to all kinds of music. They're known as the Magnificat, the Benedictus, which we shall look at next week, Lord willing, and then the Gloria Dei, glory to God, and then Nunc Dimittis, “now let your servant depart in peace,” or be released. And so as we study these, we're going to see in these songs that Luke recorded for us, much, much truth about this time of the year. So let us begin this morning with the Magnificat here, this song of Mary, this hymn of praise sung by Mary.
Her name is Maryam, though we call her Mary. She's grown up in a little village known as Nazareth, which was a fairly obscure village. In fact, it doesn't come up in any ancient literature. Nevertheless, it was in a very rich and fertile province, Galilee, full of farms and lush terrain in the summer, incredibly beautiful, and at the same time, very, very busy. It was a busy place. There was a highway of trade, plenty of people there doing business, doing commerce, trade and gentiles as well, following the path through Galilee, buying and selling. And even though it was a rich area, Mary herself was poor. And that is certainly surprising when we find out that, in fact, she was of a royal line. She was related to David through her father, Heli. In fact, her betrothed, Joseph, was also related to David. And you'd think of these people of the royal line would be living in some luxury. Instead, we find that they were very poor.
The way we know that, a little later, when they took Jesus to be dedicated at the temple and follow the law of Moses, well, the law of Moses had a particular prescription, a particular condition for people who couldn't afford to bring a lamb. They were allowed to bring two turtle doves. And we read that's exactly what Joseph and Mary brought in Luke 2 and verse 24.
They were poor. Of course, poverty can have many causes, many reasons. In their case, it wasn't a lack of hard work for Israel at this time, and they were under the boot of Rome. And beside their own tax that was mandated by the law, they had to give, by the way, about 27.5% of their income to the temple of God. And now they had, in addition to that, Rome that was asking for more taxes. There were plenty of taxes, by the way. There was a tax on the land. There was a poll tax. There was a tax on anything bought or sold.There was even a tax on single men and women. I guess to use that as an incentive to get them to get married. Plenty of taxes.
So if you're a subsistence farmer, which most people were in Israel at that time, basic tradesmen in those times, if you were living on subsistence, all these taxes would really have impoverished you. Scripture doesn't tell us how old Mary and Joseph were when these events took place, but most men, Jewish men, in the first century married before they were 20 years of age. Most Jewish girls were betrothed shortly after puberty, somewhere around 14, 15, or 16.
This is now, this is surprising to us, but in that time, it had become a custom for Jewish young men and women to marry very early, with the idea being to have as much time as possible, to have as many children as possible, and work the land, and take care of the family farm, knowing also that many children died in childbirth. And so this young teenage girl was betrothed to Joseph, which was something like our engagement, but only more binding, more official. In fact, so much so binding and official that to break the betrothal was really a form of divorce.
You have to give a certificate of divorce. They were, of course, not allowed to live together in fornication. They were to be separate until the wedding ceremony, which was usually 12 months following the betrothal, sometimes more, but not usually.
Now we know and we read earlier in the Gospel of Luke that something amazing happened to this young girl. She received a visit from one of only two angels that are named in Scripture. The other one being Michael. Well, she received a visit from Gabriel. The Bible tells us nothing about his appearance, what he looked like, it doesn't want to distract us with those details. But when she saw him, she was afraid, because it tells her, be not afraid. And she was greatly troubled. And Gabriel was sent to tell this young virgin in Israel that she of all people is chosen by God to bear the Messiah. In fact, look at verse 31, Luke chapter 1, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him to the throne of His father, David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of His kingdom.” Verse 35, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God.” So Gabriel comes, visits Mary, he says to her, Rejoice, Mary, count yourself privileged, your son will be called the Son of God, He will be called the Son of David, He’s going to be the ruler of the house of Jacob, and He’s going to have a kingdom that has no end.
Now Mary knew her scripture. She knew her scriptures, and she knew that that meant, I'm giving birth to the Messiah. Now, she was very perplexed, verse 29 tells us, because Gabriel had said nothing about Joseph, and clearly it wasn't gonna be Joseph's son, He was going to be the Son of God, the Son of David, the long promised Messiah, and Gabriel explained to her that this was going to be a miracle. It's going to be a miracle, a miracle, an act of creation in her womb by which a true human nature would be conceived. And by a miracle, there would be a complete union, a perfect union, and Gabriel doesn't say this, but it was the truth, complete perfect union with the ‘Logos’, the second person of the Trinity. What she needs to know is what Gabriel says in verse 37, with God nothing shall be impossible. With God nothing shall be impossible. And then he tells her something else. Her relative Elizabeth also has just conceived, though she was well past the age of childbearing.
Now this was a sign for Mary, a confirmation that this message is indeed true, spoken by Gabriel, for God had already done something extraordinary in Elizabeth. But as extraordinary as it was, what God did in Elizabeth, barren, old age, it wasn't this extraordinary. The announcement that he gave to Mary.
Now we don't think about this, but it's in between the lines. When Mary hears this news, it's incredible, incredible privilege, but it's also the end of her reputation. It's her ruin. In this little town, Nazareth, no one is going to believe that she's going to have a virgin-conceived child. And she will be forever in the eyes of her community, a fornicator, an immoral woman, somebody who's playing the harlot in Israel. And she knows her reputation is forever gone at this point, and yet she says to Gabriel, notice her response in verse 38, “Behold, the slave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word.” What a response. “Behold, the slave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word.” And before we move any further, beloved, this is the response that needs to come to God from your life and my life today, without any qualifications, without any reservation, without having to need tomorrow explained, without needing to have all the details filled in and a clearer picture given to us, but on the front end to say to God, God, whatever it cost, wherever you would lead me, whatever demands you would place upon my life, behold, the slave of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.
Is that where you are today in your relationship with God, beloved? Can you say that to the Lord this morning? God, whatever you will require of me, I give myself to you completely without any reservation, knowing that every step of obedience is a costly step, more often than not. Are you willing to pay that price? Have you counted the cost of following God's will for your life as outlined in the Word of God? Mary said, I surrender, I submit completely.
She then decides to take a journey, a fairly long journey for a young girl down to Jerusalem where Elizabeth and Zechariah live. And upon entering the house of Zechariah, pronouncing the greeting, and within Elizabeth's womb, the six month old John made such a movement that she knew that this was no mere kicking or pushing. This was equivalent to a leap in her womb.
And the language of the text supports that. Elizabeth knew from the angel that told Zechariah that her son was going to be the forerunner that Malachi had predicted, who would announce the Messiah's coming, the one who would proclaim, prepare the way of the Lord. She also knew that the Messiah will be born in the same generation as her son. And so when her baby leapt in her womb like he did, she knew that it was the mother of Messiah who came to visit her. And lo and behold, it was her own relative, Mary. And being filled with the Spirit, she proclaimed something that is very similar to the kinds of things that her son, John, would one day say years later.
Look at verse 42. “She cried out with a loud voice and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how has it happened to me that the mother of my Lord would come to me?” That sounds like John, doesn't it? I'm not worthy even to untie the straps of his sandals. “For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy, and blessed is she who believed,” that's Mary, “that there would be a fulfillment of what has been spoken to her by the Lord.”
Now, in response to this incredible statement, this amazing statement, Mary speaks out a song, a hymn of praise. And we need to really understand that this hymn of praise by Mary is really saturated with scripture. Oh, beloved, understand that she was a daughter of the book, Mary.
She was a daughter of the book because her song recalls Old Testament scripture from the psalm, Psalm 34, Hannah's song as well from 1 Samuel 2. She had memorized so much scripture that as Spurgeon would say, why, this young woman is a living Bible. Prick her anywhere, her blood is bib-lined, the very essence of her. The Bible flows from her. She cannot speak without quoting a text for her very soul is full of the Word of God.
Everything that was coming out of her was scriptural, and scriptural, and scriptural, and scriptural. And what is the song about? What is this Magnificat about?
Well, one word, I'm going to condense it to one word. ‘Charis,’ grace, grace, grace. God's undeserved favorite. It's all about grace. One of my favorite, favorite words, the marvels of grace. And we're going to see as we study her song that Mary is amazed in God's grace choosing her, amazed by how God's grace turns things around, and amazed by how God's grace is faithful.And she breaks into the song of worship because grace, mark it down, grace, when it's understood, always brings worship. And that's our first heading, always. When grace is properly understood, it always brings worship.
Just look at those first lines, introductory lines, which is more like an introduction to the song. Verse 46, and Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior.” And that's where we get the term Magnificat, because in the Latin version of the Bible, it's the first word in the sentence, Mary magnifies, she magnifies the Lord.
Now, not like a magnifying glass that makes a very small thing seem big, but rather like a telescope that makes a very big thing that now seems small to us, seem more like its real size.
Mary magnifies the Lord, ‘Megalono.’ She wanted to show forth how great, how magnanimous, how glorious, how good her God is. She wants to enlarge His fame. She wants to spread His greatness. And parallel to that, because she's using this Hebrew form of poetry, what does she say? Look at verse 47. “And my spirit.” has what? “rejoiced in God, my Savior.” ‘Agalliao’ is the Greek verb, a word that means to exalt, to leap for joy, to show one's joy by leaping and skipping, denoting excessive or ecstatic joy and delight. It means to be overjoyed. It means to be exceedingly joyful. In other words, you exalt God with an A, exalt, when you exult with a U in Him.
God is magnified when we are delighted in Him. God is magnified when we are delighted in Him. And the reason that she's worshiping and singing the song and breathing out the song that is inspired by the Holy Spirit, the reason she's doing it is simple. Grace, grace. She's received grace. Did you notice in verses 46 and 47, the two titles that she gives, the Lord?
She says, He is the Lord. He is the Kyrios. He is the Lord. And then she says, He is God, my Savior. That's wonderful. She submitted herself to the Lordship of God, but she knows she can never please God on her own.
So what has she done? Well, she called God her ‘soter’, her Savior, her deliverer, her rescuer. She's received grace. Of course, you all are aware of the false teaching that's developed over the centuries, that Mary was born without a sin nature, that Mary herself was without sin. But here, in fact, she says, I need a ‘soter’, a deliverer, a Savior, a rescuer. Spurgeon said, and I quote, “She needed a Savior,”referring to Mary. She needed a Savior as much as we do, for she was a sinner like ourselves. And though she was blessed among women, she here indicates that she owed that blessedness to the grace of God, who would become a Savior to her as well as to us.” End of quote.
If you are without sin, you don't need a Savior. But Mary certainly did. And she wasn't without sin. She was a sinner like all of us, and having received God's salvation, she was marveling in grace. And now as God's progressive revelation is taking a huge leap forward, as it's all coming to the big, big climax of history, she understands that she's a crucial link in God's plan of grace, and that the stirring in her womb is a massive invasion of grace into this broken world. And so as we look at the song, having considered the introductory statement, I want us to see three things about God's grace in Mary's song.
Three stanzas, if you will, about grace. Look firstly in verse 48-50. Here's the first thing.
She's magnifying God for and rejoicing in verse 48. “For He has looked upon the humble state of His slave. For behold, from this time on, all generations will count me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for Me, and holy is His name and His mercies upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him.” And here's the first thing that's making her just about dance, really. She says, God's grace is stunningly personal.
God's grace is stunningly personal. See, she praises God. Her response in regards to the grace of God is that she bursts into worship and praise, and she says, God's grace is stunningly personal. Where do we see that? Verse 48, she says, God “has looked upon the humble state of His ‘doule’, slave. Here I am, and nobody, a peasant girl in Nazareth. I have no title, I have no land, I have no inheritance, I have nothing. And frankly, I'm betrothed to someone who's equally poor. He's just a simple carpenter. But she says, God has looked upon me. He regarded me and has seen my humiliation. This word looked upon, ‘epiblepo’, it translated looked upon, actually means to look upon with considerateness, kindness, with favor.
Question, how many maidens were in Israel at this time? How many? Think about this.
And out of all of those maidens, God sovereignly, sovereignly, sovereign grace, chose Mary. Humbled, forgotten, and nobody. Anonymous. But now she knows and she tells us in verse 48 that from now on, she will be considered privileged. She will be considered a special woman. “For behold, from this time on, all generations will count me blessed.”
All generations to come will count her to be privileged, consider her to have been enormously blessed. Did that take place? Certainly, it did, certainly, it did. But tragically, it took place further than it should have been, where we ended up with the worship of Mary, which she certainly would have categorically rejected and shocked by and have no place in. By allowing her to share in the honor of bearing Messiah, she has the highest honor. And so, she says there, look at verse 49, “For the mighty one has done great things for me.” Grace has reached down and done a great thing for Mary. And then she says, “And holy is His name,” ‘Ayos’, sanctified, set apart, unique, pure, glorious, beautiful is His name. The one who has recognized Mary is the mighty one, the ‘vinatos’ one, the almighty one, the one who possesses all power in heaven and on earth. He's the one who can create a universe out of the womb of nothing, by the sound of his voice, by the power of his command, who can say, Let there be and there is. The angel Gabriel mentioned God's mighty power to Mary when she was very perplexed by his announcement. She asked, How can this be?
She's not questioning that it will be, but she's questioning, not questioning, she's asking, inquiring about the method. Since I know not a man, Gabriel responded, Mary, it will be because of the power of the most high God. The Almighty will overshadow you, for with Him all things are possible.He is the one who is mighty.
You know, so often in our culture, when people speak of God, they do so in meaningless terms. People will speak about a higher power, a force greater than themselves.
There's hardly any difference between that kind of language and the language of an idol worshiper who bows down and worships an idol made of wood and stone. Higher power, force greater than yourself? What are we talking about? Gravity? Cosmic energy? Now, why do people do that? You see, for the simple reason, as long as we can depersonalize God, make Him an impersonal force of vague, ambiguous power, then we have nothing to worry about. Impersonal forces will never hold you accountable for your behavior. But the God who is, is the God who has a name. He is not simply a power, though He has all power. He is the Almighty, the mighty one who has done great things for me, and holy is His name. How beautiful is this description of the character of God.
Mary’s saying that God is so holy, so transcendently majestic, that His name, His very name is holy. That's who He is. That's His identity. He's the holy one. He's the holy one of Israel. He's not just mighty, not just a raw force, a brute power, but He has a holy power, holy might, holy strength. And then she adds, and mercy, His mercy is on those who fear Him. And don't miss the impact of those words. That the one from whom we receive mercy, beloved, is the almighty one, the omnipotent one, the Holy One.
This powerful God focused His gaze upon me, Mary says, and He has exercised that power towards me. And nobody. Mary's marveling in the personal nature of grace. You see, grace is not scattershot, haphazard. It's not random. It's not impersonal. Yes, Titus 2.11, grace, “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.” But the fact that it has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, doesn't mean that it's not personal, for God calls us by name. By name. God calls us by name. Moses, you remember Moses, heard those words in Exodus 33.17, “then Yahweh said to Moses, I will also do this thing of which you have spoken, for you have found favor in my sight, and I have known you by name.” It's a wonder that God kindly, personally calls you, calls me to salvation by name.
He deals with you as a person, as a creature that He intimately knows, that He fashioned in the womb. He knows the hairs on your head, He knows the cells in your body, He knows the intricacies of your mind, your personality, your temperament, He knows your soul, your wants, your longing, your desires, your passions, and yet, He knows every sin, He knows every failure, past, present, and future, He knows you as an individual. He knows everything about you. Jesus said that the way He leads His people as a shepherd, it says, to Him, the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and He calls His own sheep by name. And He leads them, John 10.3. I find that to be a tremendous thought.
I don't know what shepherds call their sheep, but maybe they have a whole litany of names, but to think that a shepherd may have a flock of 40, 50, 100 sheep and actually recognize who's who and names them. And so, it is when God calls us. He calls us by name.
Can you imagine a God who didn't know our names and didn't really care to know? Can you imagine a God who, yeah, you know, saved us, but wasn't really interested in us? He's just saved a whole bunch of us. No personal relationship, no intimate communion, no adoption into the family of God. We get to heaven as you walk in heaven and an angel says, okay, this is human 11234785, human 11234786 and so forth. I mean, imagine that was the case.
No, no, that is not the triune God of Scripture. Grace, beloved, is personal. Grace is personal.
Aren't you touched by that scene after the resurrection? Mary, another Mary, Mary Magdalene, flustered, finds the body is gone. She's yet to put everything together and she can't absorb everything yet. She's not there yet. She thinks there's been some kind of a mistake. Somebody went and moved the body out of the tomb, and there Jesus meets her, and she's still so flustered, and she thinks that he's the gardener. And she says, if you've laid His body somewhere else, please tell me. I just don't know what happened to him. And in John 20 verse 16, He says one word to her, “Mary!” That's it, Mary, and her eyes open. Grace is personal. Can you imagine one day that the Lord looking in your eyes and saying, just your name, just your name, just your name?
Verse 50, back to our text, says that His grace comes to every generation. Look at this wonderful promise. “And His mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him,” in any age, any sanctuary. Those that fear Him, those that believe on Him, those that reverently worship Him. God's mercy is on them. They are the recipients of the mercy of God.
Those who fear Him. It wasn't restricted to the 1st century, or 5th, or 11th, or 12th, or 19th, or 20th. Right now, God's mercy will be on those who turn to Him, those who fear Him. Not everyone receives the mercy of a forgiving God. Some, in the final analysis, receive His justice without mercy. But who is it who receives the mercy of God?
We read here, those who fear Him. Fearing God in this context is not in the sense of being frightened, like you would be by a thief, by danger. Rather, it's fear in the sense of reverence, in the sense of awe, adoration. And this is why we're here on Sunday morning, to worship God, and that's what worship is, to show Him reverence and adoration, to honor Him. When we have this awe, this fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom and the beginning of faith and the beginning of everything, without it, there is no mercy. There isn't.
The godless are described in scripture as people who have no what? Fear of God. There's no fear of God. The world is filled with people who have no reverence for God at all, no respect, no awe, no adoration. They could care less. In fact, they show their irreverence by how they often use His name. How could someone have any fear of God, any reverence of God whatsoever, and use His name as a curse word, or use His name in vain? God's mercy is on everyone who fears him from generation to generation. And this isn't something new.
This is not something unique in the life of Mary. This is something that goes on and on from Adam to Noah to Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, David, Jeremiah, Peter, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, to you and to me. Generations come and go, but throughout all the ages one thing is constant, the Lord is merciful to those who fear Him.
May I give you, beloved, one of the most basic principles of the universe? It's this, it's this. Mark it down. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So come to Him. If you're outside of Christ, come to Him. Yield to Him. If you humble yourself, if you empty your hands, if you bow the neck and bend the knee, you will receive mercy. You will receive mercy. If you're full of yourself, full of your own righteousness, you'll receive no mercy. No mercy. No mercy whatsoever. You’ll receive pure, undiluted justice.
Those who are well are in no need of a physician. It is those who are sick that need a doctor. But Mary is rejoicing and her exalting in this grace is not restricted to the fact that grace has been personal. There's something else, and in some way it's the core of what grace is.
God's grace is firstly stunningly personal. But here's the second thing that we need to see about God's grace in her song, in this Magnificat.
Look at verse 51. She sings, “He has done a mighty deed with His arm. He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones and exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty-handed.” Here's the second part of the song about grace. Here it is, God's grace is a shocking reversal. It is a shocking reversal. It is stunningly personal, but that's not all. That's not all of it. It is a shocking reversal. I love this. This is incredible.
In these verses, Mary sings of why the God of Israel is so unusual in the world of gods, in the worlds of religion, because as you know, in the world in which we live, might is right, correct? Powerful men become proud men, proud men become more powerful and their pride and their power grow and feed off of each other. The powerful rule over the weak, the rich always get their way. Those who have that power have means and they can use those means to get their way. And conversely, the opposite seems to happen. The lowly are powerless, often oppressed and manipulated and destroyed. They don't grow in power. They stay weak, as people always say. The rich tend to get richer, the poor tend to get poorer, the weak get weaker, the strong get stronger.
This is, as Darwin would say, it's the survival of the fittest, right? But the God of Israel, the God of Israel, the God of the Messiah, Jesus Christ is the God of Grace. He's the God of Grace.
And what Grace does, beloved, is a shocking reversal, a stunning, shocking reversal. You see, it's unlooked for, unexpected, unpredictable, God who turns everything upside down, right side up. Where do we see that?
Well, Mary had just said that God, using His strength, using His power, using His wealth, using His might, has defeated and routed everyone who is proud and arrogant in their own thoughts and hearts. That's what He just said. In other words, the self-inflated, the self-promoted, He dethrones. But the humble, the humiliated, what does He do? He exalts. He exalts.Those overfed and satisfied, well, He turns away. Those hungering, thirsting after Him, He fills them. It's a shocking, stunning reversal.
So, nothing could have prepared us for this. Everything we've looked for, if we've believed in a trajectory, I mean, things continue as they always have. Right? We should have imagined, well, this is the way of the world. What can we do? And even in Israel, by the way, though they were steeped in Scripture, though they had read the Word of God, it wasn't really properly understood. They misunderstood the whole thing because by the time of Christ, many people thought that if you were wealthy, then it meant that you were on God's side. That's why when Jesus tells the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, it was world shaking, earth shattering. They just couldn't imagine that you could be wealthy and not be blessed by God. They couldn't imagine that you could have power and influence and status and nobility and not have God's favor. But Mary looks at her situation and sees the divine perspective, and she sees the irony.
What does this mean? What's brewing in her womb? What does this mean for the whole world? I mean, think about it. Here's a teenage girl, a peasant girl, in an unheard Nazareth. She's poor, she's powerless, she's plain, she's as weak as they come. And the mighty who are sitting in the palaces in Rome, in Caesarea Philippi, in Jerusalem, they're not going to be looking among the poor in Nazareth to find out who the next world leader will become. But in her womb is the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. He's going to change the world. He's going to completely turn it upside down. And the great humor of this is that God is deliberately overlooking the proud. He's deliberately bypassing those who are wise in their own eyes, and He is exalting the lowly, the humiliated. He's going to save the humble, He’s going to fill the hungry, He's deliberately doing the opposite.
Grace is a stunning reversal. It's a shocking reversal. Tolkien, the author of “The Lord of the Rings”, coined a word for this. It's the word eucatastrophe. He adds the ‘eu’ to the word catastrophe because words that have the prefix ‘eu’ in Greek means good. The idea is it's a good catastrophe. And what He meant by that was that what He defined as the sudden happy turn in a story, which pierces you with joy that brings tears. A sudden unexpected good or happy turn of events, good and happy ending, the sudden happy turn in a story, that's what grace does. That's what grace does.
We were doomed, weren't we? Right? We were doomed. There was no way out. Where were we headed? We were headed to hell. What were our prospects? Hell. Forever. And as God comes and rescues those who can't rescue themselves, gives to those who haven't earned it, lifts up those who are crippled, what is it? It's pure grace and it is a shocking reversal.
Staggeringly different. In fact, it's so different that no one in the ancient world ever prized the idea of humility. If you pick up the classic readings of the Romans, they tend to exalt things like dignity, sobriety, but no Roman exalted humility. Why would you humiliate yourself in a culture of honor? No one in the ancient world would come up with this verse, “whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted,” Matthew 23:12. No one would have come up with that. It's what one theologian called, and I quote, “God's everlasting surprise, concerning God's grace.” Concerning God's grace, he said, “this is God's everlasting surprise.” It reverses everything we would expect because we thought that power would prevail, but God's grace is powerfully unexpected.
You say, but why? Why is God doing that? Why is God doing that? The Bible actually gives us the secret, the answer, why God is doing this. And if you keep your finger here in Luke chapter 1, turn with me to 1 Corinthians 1, and here the Bible is going to give us the reason why God prefers this approach and does what He does. 1 Corinthians 1:26, Paul dealing with a church that was still infected with the pagan idea of power and arrogance and boasting and pride and your appearance and your name and all that kind of stuff, that vain, empty, shallow stuff.
He says to them in verse 26, “for consider your calling, brothers, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble,” pardon me. Yeah, not many mighty, not many noble. “But God” verse 27, “has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world and the despise God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are,” and here it is, underline it in your Bible, so what? “No flesh may boast before God.” That's why. So that no flesh may boast before God, but by His doing, who's doing? By who's doing you are in Christ? By who's doing am I in Christ? Look at this, by His doing you are in Christ. That's it. Period. Paragraph.
Who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, so that just as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in what? Who? The Lord. Only the Lord. Do you understand why God turns it upside down? Do you understand why there is this shocking reversal? Here is the big secret behind grace. Here is the big secret behind grace. May be etched upon the tablet of your mind and my mind, God is not going to share his glory with proud human beings.
It's simple, but it's stunning. God is not going to share his glory with proud human beings. And if there is a way to paint a big target on your forehead, be proud, be proud. You're saying to the Almighty, yeah, I'll take you on. I said it many times before, when a person battles with God, God always wins. You see, in the glory war, its winner takes all. And God is not going to let us take an iota of credit for what is His. And so what does He do? Well, He ignores those who are self-sufficient. He passes over those who are strong in themselves. He dismisses those who are self-satisfied and full of themselves. Why? Because they're going to boast, and they're going to take the credit, and they're going to want to share the glory with God and say, yep, me and God. But to those who are empty-handed, those who cannot purchase what He has, those who cannot manipulate through power, those who are low and empty and poor in spirit, you know what God says? Those are perfect for me to shower my grace upon. They are the perfect candidates. Those unmistakable are going to show that what I did was all grace. Unmistakably.
They are going to show what I did is all of grace, not something made by man.
Friends, God does not trade with man. He gives freely, and it must be received freely. God will not negotiate with you and reach a settlement with you. You accept His terms or none at all. And let me give you those terms. And they are very simple and listen very carefully. Here they are. If you remember nothing else, remember this.
Here are the terms of grace. God says, I will get all the credit and you will get all the benefits.
Isn't that amazing? I will get all the credit, you will get all the benefit, but no sharing and no mixing of the two. And so what that means is if you want to receive the grace of God to forgive you of your sins and give you a new life and start your life afresh, you come to Him, how? Empty handed. And if you're wealthy by the world standard, wise by the world standard, powerful by the world standard, come before God as if you have nothing because from God's perspective, you are utterly destitute, bankrupt, have absolutely nothing. And so the invitation is, come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power.
Come empty handed. I plead with you, come empty handed. These are His terms. Come as simple as a child, come as weak and needy, as if you were wounded because God loves to exalt those who will humbly give Him all the credit and all the glory. And that's the Gospel, my dear, dear sinner friend. And that's why it is life changing. And that is why it is a shocking reversal. And that's why when you tell people the Gospel, their first response is something like, ‘you mean I mustn't do anything? I mustn't do anything? You mean there's nothing I can do to earn it? But it seems too easy, it seems too simple.’ It wasn't easy for God. It wasn't simple for Christ. But that seems ridiculous. If I receive this Gospel, I'm forgiven, my sins are blotted out.
The Gospel is clear. You come empty handed, you hand your life over to Him, He forgives you, you get all the benefits, He gets all the credit. Will you? Will you respond? Will you not respond in the words of the Hymn? Today, I will arise and go to Jesus, and He will embrace me in His arms, in the arms of my dear Savior. Oh, there are ten thousand charms. And Mary looks at this and she rejoices.
Mary's song is stanzas that really sing of grace, marvelous grace. And it is personal, stunningly personal. And then a shocking reversal, but there's a final stanza in her song.
Look back to our text for the third part of this wonderful hymn of praise, The Magnificat, verse 54. Mary sings this, “He has given help to Israel, His servant, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and His seed forever.” It's personal, it's a reversal.
Thirdly, God's grace is steadfastly faithful. Steadfastly faithful. What Mary remembers here is what she's about to give birth, to what she remembers here is what she's about to give birth to, is fulfillment of a promise given 2,000 years prior. God told Abraham, you remember that his seed, singular, his descendant, singular, through that one descendant, all nations will be blessed. God told Moses, a prophet like him would rise up and speak the word of God, Deuteronomy 18: 19, the prophet, the God man. God spoke to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Micah, Malachi, Haggai, and with all of these prophets, he said, I'm going to have a new covenant, and I'm going to send my Messiah. I'm going to bear the sins of Israel and Gentiles, and I'm going to defeat Israel's enemies and return her to glory, and all of my promises will come to pass.
And you know what Mary realizes? Right now, what is stirring in her womb is the yes to all of those promises. God has not forgotten. God didn't make empty promises. God didn't promise, but then get thwarted by circumstances. You see, a grace that can promise but not deliver is no grace at all. Maybe you've been at the receiving end of a promise that never materialized, and it's a disappointing thing. Listen, when God makes gracious promises, He means to keep every single one of them. And He does. He doesn't randomly throw out statements that can't be fulfilled or He can't fulfill. He said, I will send Messiah, I will forgive everyone who believes in Him, I will send My Spirit, I will come for you, I will prepare a place for you, I will take you home to be with Me, I will wipe away every tear, every sorrow, you will forever be with Me in My presence, face to face.
Remember David's cry in Psalm 103, verse 2? “Bless Yahweh, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits.” Our tendency as Christians is to be as strong in our faith as the recollection of our latest blessing. We forget the benefits, all the benefits that God has poured out on us in our lives. That's our tendency, that's our nature. What is it to forget? That's why one of the most repeated words in the Old Testament is the word remember. Remember, remember, well, this is one of the ways, beloved, in which we differ so profoundly from God. God simply does not know how to forget His promises. Once God makes a promise to His people, it is set in stone, it is as good as done, it's forever. That promise cannot be rescinded, that promise cannot be broken, it will never be forgotten. Beloved, do you know the exciting thing about the incarnation? Christ coming to rescue us is that you could say every promise, every single promise that led up to the first coming of Christ was fulfilled.
Every single one of them was fulfilled completely. So what should we say then about every promise that leads up to the second coming of Jesus? God's grace is steadfastly faithful. The wonderful thing about free grace is that it's free at both ends. It's free when you receive it, it's free when you get it. It's free in its offering, giving, it's free in its securing and keeping. If God gave it to you because of some goodness in you, because you ticked a box, you did something correct, well then it would require some goodness in you to secure it, wouldn't it? But if God delights to clothe the prodigal son, if He delights to forgive the weeping sinner at His feet, if He receives the tax collector who is earnestly beating His chest, obviously He delights to give this for free. And if there was no price tag at the beginning, there is no interest charge later on. And if you couldn't earn it in the first place, you can't keep it by paying installments. It's free. And God makes this promise that is going to keep, and it is He who does so.
Yes, He uses the means of your persevering faith, which He enables, He authors, and you persevere to the end, but it's grace at the beginning, grace in the middle and grace at the end.
In his days, CS. Lewis was widely considered to be the most learned man in the world, and they say that he read nearly everything significant or important to read classically, philosophically, and religiously. And to the envy of all of us, he could remember absolutely everything he read to the Word. Everything. You asked me what you read earlier this morning, I'm like, I can't remember. But before he came to Christ, he was an atheist, and he'd absorbed all of these religions, absorbed all of these philosophies. And at one point, there was a conference on comparative religions after he became a man of God. And there were all these people trying to debate the similarities and differences between these religions. And so somebody said, look, is Christianity really unique? Is it really that different? Is it what makes it different from the rest? And it was this back and forth, back and forth.
Lewis at this point walked into the room a little early for his presentation, noticed all the squabbling, and he asked, well, what are you arguing about? They said, well, we're trying to find out the difference between Christianity and every other religion. And Lewis said: oh, that's easy.
Of course, when you read like him and seen and had seen and compared as much as he'd compared, it's easy. And he remembered everything. And this was his answer:Oh, that's easy. It's grace. That's it.
It's grace. And the room fell silent. Lewis continued to say to them that Christianity uniquely claims that God's love comes free of charge with no strings attached.
No religion makes that claim. And after a moment, people began to say Lewis had a point because in Buddhism, there's an eightfold path to enlightenment. It's not free.
In Hinduism, it's karma, and your actions continually affect the way the world treats you. And there's nothing that happens that isn't set in motion by your actions. In Islam, there's a strict slavish submission to Allah that may or may not bring eternal reward. But Christianity says, grace, grace, stunningly personal, shocking reversal, and steadfastly faithful.
Have you received it this morning? Have you received it?
I pray you have. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this song of Mary, for this Magnificat.
What a joyful, mighty thing that grace reaches down to us by name and is willing to take us as we are. Poor, needy, weak, wounded, sick, and sore. Poor in spirit. So long as we come as those who need a physician, grace will find us. As long as we come as those who are empty of ourselves, grace will fill us. As long as we come as those who cannot walk, grace will heal us.
As long as we come as those who recognize that we are dead in trespasses and sin, dead toward you, grace will quicken us and resurrect us. Lord, I pray for every soul here this morning.
Every soul that, that no one will say no to the gift of Jesus Christ freely offered, freely given. That everyone here can go out with the assurance that he or she has received Christ as Lord and Savior, believed, received and taken him in as God's stunning reversal, God giving us what we couldn't take on our own and what we didn't deserve when we deserved the exact opposite.
Oh Lord, have mercy and help us, help us treasure this marvelous grace.
Free grace at the beginning, free grace in the middle, free grace at the end. And Father, I pray that your Spirit would be working among hearts, even now, converting, changing, turning, convicting. And Lord, I pray that we would then rest in the joy that grace is steadfastly faithful. That if you're in it, if we're in it, it cannot be lost. And now, Lord, this morning, grant us the same magnification of you, the same kind of joy and exultation in you that Mary felt.
It's when we know this grace, this kind of grace, this marvelous grace, that it's truly amazing to us. So bless your word to our hearts this morning and every heart here, Lord.
May it lay low before you in humility and thanksgiving and praise.
May we never rob you an ounce of the glory that belongs to you.
We thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Her name is Maryam, though we call her Mary. She's grown up in a little village known as Nazareth, which was a fairly obscure village. In fact, it doesn't come up in any ancient literature. Nevertheless, it was in a very rich and fertile province, Galilee, full of farms and lush terrain in the summer, incredibly beautiful, and at the same time, very, very busy. It was a busy place. There was a highway of trade, plenty of people there doing business, doing commerce, trade and gentiles as well, following the path through Galilee, buying and selling. And even though it was a rich area, Mary herself was poor. And that is certainly surprising when we find out that, in fact, she was of a royal line. She was related to David through her father, Heli. In fact, her betrothed, Joseph, was also related to David. And you'd think of these people of the royal line would be living in some luxury. Instead, we find that they were very poor.
The way we know that, a little later, when they took Jesus to be dedicated at the temple and follow the law of Moses, well, the law of Moses had a particular prescription, a particular condition for people who couldn't afford to bring a lamb. They were allowed to bring two turtle doves. And we read that's exactly what Joseph and Mary brought in Luke 2 and verse 24.
They were poor. Of course, poverty can have many causes, many reasons. In their case, it wasn't a lack of hard work for Israel at this time, and they were under the boot of Rome. And beside their own tax that was mandated by the law, they had to give, by the way, about 27.5% of their income to the temple of God. And now they had, in addition to that, Rome that was asking for more taxes. There were plenty of taxes, by the way. There was a tax on the land. There was a poll tax. There was a tax on anything bought or sold.There was even a tax on single men and women. I guess to use that as an incentive to get them to get married. Plenty of taxes.
So if you're a subsistence farmer, which most people were in Israel at that time, basic tradesmen in those times, if you were living on subsistence, all these taxes would really have impoverished you. Scripture doesn't tell us how old Mary and Joseph were when these events took place, but most men, Jewish men, in the first century married before they were 20 years of age. Most Jewish girls were betrothed shortly after puberty, somewhere around 14, 15, or 16.
This is now, this is surprising to us, but in that time, it had become a custom for Jewish young men and women to marry very early, with the idea being to have as much time as possible, to have as many children as possible, and work the land, and take care of the family farm, knowing also that many children died in childbirth. And so this young teenage girl was betrothed to Joseph, which was something like our engagement, but only more binding, more official. In fact, so much so binding and official that to break the betrothal was really a form of divorce.
You have to give a certificate of divorce. They were, of course, not allowed to live together in fornication. They were to be separate until the wedding ceremony, which was usually 12 months following the betrothal, sometimes more, but not usually.
Now we know and we read earlier in the Gospel of Luke that something amazing happened to this young girl. She received a visit from one of only two angels that are named in Scripture. The other one being Michael. Well, she received a visit from Gabriel. The Bible tells us nothing about his appearance, what he looked like, it doesn't want to distract us with those details. But when she saw him, she was afraid, because it tells her, be not afraid. And she was greatly troubled. And Gabriel was sent to tell this young virgin in Israel that she of all people is chosen by God to bear the Messiah. In fact, look at verse 31, Luke chapter 1, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him to the throne of His father, David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of His kingdom.” Verse 35, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God.” So Gabriel comes, visits Mary, he says to her, Rejoice, Mary, count yourself privileged, your son will be called the Son of God, He will be called the Son of David, He’s going to be the ruler of the house of Jacob, and He’s going to have a kingdom that has no end.
Now Mary knew her scripture. She knew her scriptures, and she knew that that meant, I'm giving birth to the Messiah. Now, she was very perplexed, verse 29 tells us, because Gabriel had said nothing about Joseph, and clearly it wasn't gonna be Joseph's son, He was going to be the Son of God, the Son of David, the long promised Messiah, and Gabriel explained to her that this was going to be a miracle. It's going to be a miracle, a miracle, an act of creation in her womb by which a true human nature would be conceived. And by a miracle, there would be a complete union, a perfect union, and Gabriel doesn't say this, but it was the truth, complete perfect union with the ‘Logos’, the second person of the Trinity. What she needs to know is what Gabriel says in verse 37, with God nothing shall be impossible. With God nothing shall be impossible. And then he tells her something else. Her relative Elizabeth also has just conceived, though she was well past the age of childbearing.
Now this was a sign for Mary, a confirmation that this message is indeed true, spoken by Gabriel, for God had already done something extraordinary in Elizabeth. But as extraordinary as it was, what God did in Elizabeth, barren, old age, it wasn't this extraordinary. The announcement that he gave to Mary.
Now we don't think about this, but it's in between the lines. When Mary hears this news, it's incredible, incredible privilege, but it's also the end of her reputation. It's her ruin. In this little town, Nazareth, no one is going to believe that she's going to have a virgin-conceived child. And she will be forever in the eyes of her community, a fornicator, an immoral woman, somebody who's playing the harlot in Israel. And she knows her reputation is forever gone at this point, and yet she says to Gabriel, notice her response in verse 38, “Behold, the slave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word.” What a response. “Behold, the slave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word.” And before we move any further, beloved, this is the response that needs to come to God from your life and my life today, without any qualifications, without any reservation, without having to need tomorrow explained, without needing to have all the details filled in and a clearer picture given to us, but on the front end to say to God, God, whatever it cost, wherever you would lead me, whatever demands you would place upon my life, behold, the slave of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.
Is that where you are today in your relationship with God, beloved? Can you say that to the Lord this morning? God, whatever you will require of me, I give myself to you completely without any reservation, knowing that every step of obedience is a costly step, more often than not. Are you willing to pay that price? Have you counted the cost of following God's will for your life as outlined in the Word of God? Mary said, I surrender, I submit completely.
She then decides to take a journey, a fairly long journey for a young girl down to Jerusalem where Elizabeth and Zechariah live. And upon entering the house of Zechariah, pronouncing the greeting, and within Elizabeth's womb, the six month old John made such a movement that she knew that this was no mere kicking or pushing. This was equivalent to a leap in her womb.
And the language of the text supports that. Elizabeth knew from the angel that told Zechariah that her son was going to be the forerunner that Malachi had predicted, who would announce the Messiah's coming, the one who would proclaim, prepare the way of the Lord. She also knew that the Messiah will be born in the same generation as her son. And so when her baby leapt in her womb like he did, she knew that it was the mother of Messiah who came to visit her. And lo and behold, it was her own relative, Mary. And being filled with the Spirit, she proclaimed something that is very similar to the kinds of things that her son, John, would one day say years later.
Look at verse 42. “She cried out with a loud voice and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how has it happened to me that the mother of my Lord would come to me?” That sounds like John, doesn't it? I'm not worthy even to untie the straps of his sandals. “For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy, and blessed is she who believed,” that's Mary, “that there would be a fulfillment of what has been spoken to her by the Lord.”
Now, in response to this incredible statement, this amazing statement, Mary speaks out a song, a hymn of praise. And we need to really understand that this hymn of praise by Mary is really saturated with scripture. Oh, beloved, understand that she was a daughter of the book, Mary.
She was a daughter of the book because her song recalls Old Testament scripture from the psalm, Psalm 34, Hannah's song as well from 1 Samuel 2. She had memorized so much scripture that as Spurgeon would say, why, this young woman is a living Bible. Prick her anywhere, her blood is bib-lined, the very essence of her. The Bible flows from her. She cannot speak without quoting a text for her very soul is full of the Word of God.
Everything that was coming out of her was scriptural, and scriptural, and scriptural, and scriptural. And what is the song about? What is this Magnificat about?
Well, one word, I'm going to condense it to one word. ‘Charis,’ grace, grace, grace. God's undeserved favorite. It's all about grace. One of my favorite, favorite words, the marvels of grace. And we're going to see as we study her song that Mary is amazed in God's grace choosing her, amazed by how God's grace turns things around, and amazed by how God's grace is faithful.And she breaks into the song of worship because grace, mark it down, grace, when it's understood, always brings worship. And that's our first heading, always. When grace is properly understood, it always brings worship.
Just look at those first lines, introductory lines, which is more like an introduction to the song. Verse 46, and Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior.” And that's where we get the term Magnificat, because in the Latin version of the Bible, it's the first word in the sentence, Mary magnifies, she magnifies the Lord.
Now, not like a magnifying glass that makes a very small thing seem big, but rather like a telescope that makes a very big thing that now seems small to us, seem more like its real size.
Mary magnifies the Lord, ‘Megalono.’ She wanted to show forth how great, how magnanimous, how glorious, how good her God is. She wants to enlarge His fame. She wants to spread His greatness. And parallel to that, because she's using this Hebrew form of poetry, what does she say? Look at verse 47. “And my spirit.” has what? “rejoiced in God, my Savior.” ‘Agalliao’ is the Greek verb, a word that means to exalt, to leap for joy, to show one's joy by leaping and skipping, denoting excessive or ecstatic joy and delight. It means to be overjoyed. It means to be exceedingly joyful. In other words, you exalt God with an A, exalt, when you exult with a U in Him.
God is magnified when we are delighted in Him. God is magnified when we are delighted in Him. And the reason that she's worshiping and singing the song and breathing out the song that is inspired by the Holy Spirit, the reason she's doing it is simple. Grace, grace. She's received grace. Did you notice in verses 46 and 47, the two titles that she gives, the Lord?
She says, He is the Lord. He is the Kyrios. He is the Lord. And then she says, He is God, my Savior. That's wonderful. She submitted herself to the Lordship of God, but she knows she can never please God on her own.
So what has she done? Well, she called God her ‘soter’, her Savior, her deliverer, her rescuer. She's received grace. Of course, you all are aware of the false teaching that's developed over the centuries, that Mary was born without a sin nature, that Mary herself was without sin. But here, in fact, she says, I need a ‘soter’, a deliverer, a Savior, a rescuer. Spurgeon said, and I quote, “She needed a Savior,”referring to Mary. She needed a Savior as much as we do, for she was a sinner like ourselves. And though she was blessed among women, she here indicates that she owed that blessedness to the grace of God, who would become a Savior to her as well as to us.” End of quote.
If you are without sin, you don't need a Savior. But Mary certainly did. And she wasn't without sin. She was a sinner like all of us, and having received God's salvation, she was marveling in grace. And now as God's progressive revelation is taking a huge leap forward, as it's all coming to the big, big climax of history, she understands that she's a crucial link in God's plan of grace, and that the stirring in her womb is a massive invasion of grace into this broken world. And so as we look at the song, having considered the introductory statement, I want us to see three things about God's grace in Mary's song.
Three stanzas, if you will, about grace. Look firstly in verse 48-50. Here's the first thing.
She's magnifying God for and rejoicing in verse 48. “For He has looked upon the humble state of His slave. For behold, from this time on, all generations will count me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for Me, and holy is His name and His mercies upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him.” And here's the first thing that's making her just about dance, really. She says, God's grace is stunningly personal.
God's grace is stunningly personal. See, she praises God. Her response in regards to the grace of God is that she bursts into worship and praise, and she says, God's grace is stunningly personal. Where do we see that? Verse 48, she says, God “has looked upon the humble state of His ‘doule’, slave. Here I am, and nobody, a peasant girl in Nazareth. I have no title, I have no land, I have no inheritance, I have nothing. And frankly, I'm betrothed to someone who's equally poor. He's just a simple carpenter. But she says, God has looked upon me. He regarded me and has seen my humiliation. This word looked upon, ‘epiblepo’, it translated looked upon, actually means to look upon with considerateness, kindness, with favor.
Question, how many maidens were in Israel at this time? How many? Think about this.
And out of all of those maidens, God sovereignly, sovereignly, sovereign grace, chose Mary. Humbled, forgotten, and nobody. Anonymous. But now she knows and she tells us in verse 48 that from now on, she will be considered privileged. She will be considered a special woman. “For behold, from this time on, all generations will count me blessed.”
All generations to come will count her to be privileged, consider her to have been enormously blessed. Did that take place? Certainly, it did, certainly, it did. But tragically, it took place further than it should have been, where we ended up with the worship of Mary, which she certainly would have categorically rejected and shocked by and have no place in. By allowing her to share in the honor of bearing Messiah, she has the highest honor. And so, she says there, look at verse 49, “For the mighty one has done great things for me.” Grace has reached down and done a great thing for Mary. And then she says, “And holy is His name,” ‘Ayos’, sanctified, set apart, unique, pure, glorious, beautiful is His name. The one who has recognized Mary is the mighty one, the ‘vinatos’ one, the almighty one, the one who possesses all power in heaven and on earth. He's the one who can create a universe out of the womb of nothing, by the sound of his voice, by the power of his command, who can say, Let there be and there is. The angel Gabriel mentioned God's mighty power to Mary when she was very perplexed by his announcement. She asked, How can this be?
She's not questioning that it will be, but she's questioning, not questioning, she's asking, inquiring about the method. Since I know not a man, Gabriel responded, Mary, it will be because of the power of the most high God. The Almighty will overshadow you, for with Him all things are possible.He is the one who is mighty.
You know, so often in our culture, when people speak of God, they do so in meaningless terms. People will speak about a higher power, a force greater than themselves.
There's hardly any difference between that kind of language and the language of an idol worshiper who bows down and worships an idol made of wood and stone. Higher power, force greater than yourself? What are we talking about? Gravity? Cosmic energy? Now, why do people do that? You see, for the simple reason, as long as we can depersonalize God, make Him an impersonal force of vague, ambiguous power, then we have nothing to worry about. Impersonal forces will never hold you accountable for your behavior. But the God who is, is the God who has a name. He is not simply a power, though He has all power. He is the Almighty, the mighty one who has done great things for me, and holy is His name. How beautiful is this description of the character of God.
Mary’s saying that God is so holy, so transcendently majestic, that His name, His very name is holy. That's who He is. That's His identity. He's the holy one. He's the holy one of Israel. He's not just mighty, not just a raw force, a brute power, but He has a holy power, holy might, holy strength. And then she adds, and mercy, His mercy is on those who fear Him. And don't miss the impact of those words. That the one from whom we receive mercy, beloved, is the almighty one, the omnipotent one, the Holy One.
This powerful God focused His gaze upon me, Mary says, and He has exercised that power towards me. And nobody. Mary's marveling in the personal nature of grace. You see, grace is not scattershot, haphazard. It's not random. It's not impersonal. Yes, Titus 2.11, grace, “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.” But the fact that it has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, doesn't mean that it's not personal, for God calls us by name. By name. God calls us by name. Moses, you remember Moses, heard those words in Exodus 33.17, “then Yahweh said to Moses, I will also do this thing of which you have spoken, for you have found favor in my sight, and I have known you by name.” It's a wonder that God kindly, personally calls you, calls me to salvation by name.
He deals with you as a person, as a creature that He intimately knows, that He fashioned in the womb. He knows the hairs on your head, He knows the cells in your body, He knows the intricacies of your mind, your personality, your temperament, He knows your soul, your wants, your longing, your desires, your passions, and yet, He knows every sin, He knows every failure, past, present, and future, He knows you as an individual. He knows everything about you. Jesus said that the way He leads His people as a shepherd, it says, to Him, the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and He calls His own sheep by name. And He leads them, John 10.3. I find that to be a tremendous thought.
I don't know what shepherds call their sheep, but maybe they have a whole litany of names, but to think that a shepherd may have a flock of 40, 50, 100 sheep and actually recognize who's who and names them. And so, it is when God calls us. He calls us by name.
Can you imagine a God who didn't know our names and didn't really care to know? Can you imagine a God who, yeah, you know, saved us, but wasn't really interested in us? He's just saved a whole bunch of us. No personal relationship, no intimate communion, no adoption into the family of God. We get to heaven as you walk in heaven and an angel says, okay, this is human 11234785, human 11234786 and so forth. I mean, imagine that was the case.
No, no, that is not the triune God of Scripture. Grace, beloved, is personal. Grace is personal.
Aren't you touched by that scene after the resurrection? Mary, another Mary, Mary Magdalene, flustered, finds the body is gone. She's yet to put everything together and she can't absorb everything yet. She's not there yet. She thinks there's been some kind of a mistake. Somebody went and moved the body out of the tomb, and there Jesus meets her, and she's still so flustered, and she thinks that he's the gardener. And she says, if you've laid His body somewhere else, please tell me. I just don't know what happened to him. And in John 20 verse 16, He says one word to her, “Mary!” That's it, Mary, and her eyes open. Grace is personal. Can you imagine one day that the Lord looking in your eyes and saying, just your name, just your name, just your name?
Verse 50, back to our text, says that His grace comes to every generation. Look at this wonderful promise. “And His mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him,” in any age, any sanctuary. Those that fear Him, those that believe on Him, those that reverently worship Him. God's mercy is on them. They are the recipients of the mercy of God.
Those who fear Him. It wasn't restricted to the 1st century, or 5th, or 11th, or 12th, or 19th, or 20th. Right now, God's mercy will be on those who turn to Him, those who fear Him. Not everyone receives the mercy of a forgiving God. Some, in the final analysis, receive His justice without mercy. But who is it who receives the mercy of God?
We read here, those who fear Him. Fearing God in this context is not in the sense of being frightened, like you would be by a thief, by danger. Rather, it's fear in the sense of reverence, in the sense of awe, adoration. And this is why we're here on Sunday morning, to worship God, and that's what worship is, to show Him reverence and adoration, to honor Him. When we have this awe, this fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom and the beginning of faith and the beginning of everything, without it, there is no mercy. There isn't.
The godless are described in scripture as people who have no what? Fear of God. There's no fear of God. The world is filled with people who have no reverence for God at all, no respect, no awe, no adoration. They could care less. In fact, they show their irreverence by how they often use His name. How could someone have any fear of God, any reverence of God whatsoever, and use His name as a curse word, or use His name in vain? God's mercy is on everyone who fears him from generation to generation. And this isn't something new.
This is not something unique in the life of Mary. This is something that goes on and on from Adam to Noah to Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, David, Jeremiah, Peter, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, to you and to me. Generations come and go, but throughout all the ages one thing is constant, the Lord is merciful to those who fear Him.
May I give you, beloved, one of the most basic principles of the universe? It's this, it's this. Mark it down. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So come to Him. If you're outside of Christ, come to Him. Yield to Him. If you humble yourself, if you empty your hands, if you bow the neck and bend the knee, you will receive mercy. You will receive mercy. If you're full of yourself, full of your own righteousness, you'll receive no mercy. No mercy. No mercy whatsoever. You’ll receive pure, undiluted justice.
Those who are well are in no need of a physician. It is those who are sick that need a doctor. But Mary is rejoicing and her exalting in this grace is not restricted to the fact that grace has been personal. There's something else, and in some way it's the core of what grace is.
God's grace is firstly stunningly personal. But here's the second thing that we need to see about God's grace in her song, in this Magnificat.
Look at verse 51. She sings, “He has done a mighty deed with His arm. He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones and exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty-handed.” Here's the second part of the song about grace. Here it is, God's grace is a shocking reversal. It is a shocking reversal. It is stunningly personal, but that's not all. That's not all of it. It is a shocking reversal. I love this. This is incredible.
In these verses, Mary sings of why the God of Israel is so unusual in the world of gods, in the worlds of religion, because as you know, in the world in which we live, might is right, correct? Powerful men become proud men, proud men become more powerful and their pride and their power grow and feed off of each other. The powerful rule over the weak, the rich always get their way. Those who have that power have means and they can use those means to get their way. And conversely, the opposite seems to happen. The lowly are powerless, often oppressed and manipulated and destroyed. They don't grow in power. They stay weak, as people always say. The rich tend to get richer, the poor tend to get poorer, the weak get weaker, the strong get stronger.
This is, as Darwin would say, it's the survival of the fittest, right? But the God of Israel, the God of Israel, the God of the Messiah, Jesus Christ is the God of Grace. He's the God of Grace.
And what Grace does, beloved, is a shocking reversal, a stunning, shocking reversal. You see, it's unlooked for, unexpected, unpredictable, God who turns everything upside down, right side up. Where do we see that?
Well, Mary had just said that God, using His strength, using His power, using His wealth, using His might, has defeated and routed everyone who is proud and arrogant in their own thoughts and hearts. That's what He just said. In other words, the self-inflated, the self-promoted, He dethrones. But the humble, the humiliated, what does He do? He exalts. He exalts.Those overfed and satisfied, well, He turns away. Those hungering, thirsting after Him, He fills them. It's a shocking, stunning reversal.
So, nothing could have prepared us for this. Everything we've looked for, if we've believed in a trajectory, I mean, things continue as they always have. Right? We should have imagined, well, this is the way of the world. What can we do? And even in Israel, by the way, though they were steeped in Scripture, though they had read the Word of God, it wasn't really properly understood. They misunderstood the whole thing because by the time of Christ, many people thought that if you were wealthy, then it meant that you were on God's side. That's why when Jesus tells the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, it was world shaking, earth shattering. They just couldn't imagine that you could be wealthy and not be blessed by God. They couldn't imagine that you could have power and influence and status and nobility and not have God's favor. But Mary looks at her situation and sees the divine perspective, and she sees the irony.
What does this mean? What's brewing in her womb? What does this mean for the whole world? I mean, think about it. Here's a teenage girl, a peasant girl, in an unheard Nazareth. She's poor, she's powerless, she's plain, she's as weak as they come. And the mighty who are sitting in the palaces in Rome, in Caesarea Philippi, in Jerusalem, they're not going to be looking among the poor in Nazareth to find out who the next world leader will become. But in her womb is the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. He's going to change the world. He's going to completely turn it upside down. And the great humor of this is that God is deliberately overlooking the proud. He's deliberately bypassing those who are wise in their own eyes, and He is exalting the lowly, the humiliated. He's going to save the humble, He’s going to fill the hungry, He's deliberately doing the opposite.
Grace is a stunning reversal. It's a shocking reversal. Tolkien, the author of “The Lord of the Rings”, coined a word for this. It's the word eucatastrophe. He adds the ‘eu’ to the word catastrophe because words that have the prefix ‘eu’ in Greek means good. The idea is it's a good catastrophe. And what He meant by that was that what He defined as the sudden happy turn in a story, which pierces you with joy that brings tears. A sudden unexpected good or happy turn of events, good and happy ending, the sudden happy turn in a story, that's what grace does. That's what grace does.
We were doomed, weren't we? Right? We were doomed. There was no way out. Where were we headed? We were headed to hell. What were our prospects? Hell. Forever. And as God comes and rescues those who can't rescue themselves, gives to those who haven't earned it, lifts up those who are crippled, what is it? It's pure grace and it is a shocking reversal.
Staggeringly different. In fact, it's so different that no one in the ancient world ever prized the idea of humility. If you pick up the classic readings of the Romans, they tend to exalt things like dignity, sobriety, but no Roman exalted humility. Why would you humiliate yourself in a culture of honor? No one in the ancient world would come up with this verse, “whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted,” Matthew 23:12. No one would have come up with that. It's what one theologian called, and I quote, “God's everlasting surprise, concerning God's grace.” Concerning God's grace, he said, “this is God's everlasting surprise.” It reverses everything we would expect because we thought that power would prevail, but God's grace is powerfully unexpected.
You say, but why? Why is God doing that? Why is God doing that? The Bible actually gives us the secret, the answer, why God is doing this. And if you keep your finger here in Luke chapter 1, turn with me to 1 Corinthians 1, and here the Bible is going to give us the reason why God prefers this approach and does what He does. 1 Corinthians 1:26, Paul dealing with a church that was still infected with the pagan idea of power and arrogance and boasting and pride and your appearance and your name and all that kind of stuff, that vain, empty, shallow stuff.
He says to them in verse 26, “for consider your calling, brothers, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble,” pardon me. Yeah, not many mighty, not many noble. “But God” verse 27, “has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world and the despise God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are,” and here it is, underline it in your Bible, so what? “No flesh may boast before God.” That's why. So that no flesh may boast before God, but by His doing, who's doing? By who's doing you are in Christ? By who's doing am I in Christ? Look at this, by His doing you are in Christ. That's it. Period. Paragraph.
Who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, so that just as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in what? Who? The Lord. Only the Lord. Do you understand why God turns it upside down? Do you understand why there is this shocking reversal? Here is the big secret behind grace. Here is the big secret behind grace. May be etched upon the tablet of your mind and my mind, God is not going to share his glory with proud human beings.
It's simple, but it's stunning. God is not going to share his glory with proud human beings. And if there is a way to paint a big target on your forehead, be proud, be proud. You're saying to the Almighty, yeah, I'll take you on. I said it many times before, when a person battles with God, God always wins. You see, in the glory war, its winner takes all. And God is not going to let us take an iota of credit for what is His. And so what does He do? Well, He ignores those who are self-sufficient. He passes over those who are strong in themselves. He dismisses those who are self-satisfied and full of themselves. Why? Because they're going to boast, and they're going to take the credit, and they're going to want to share the glory with God and say, yep, me and God. But to those who are empty-handed, those who cannot purchase what He has, those who cannot manipulate through power, those who are low and empty and poor in spirit, you know what God says? Those are perfect for me to shower my grace upon. They are the perfect candidates. Those unmistakable are going to show that what I did was all grace. Unmistakably.
They are going to show what I did is all of grace, not something made by man.
Friends, God does not trade with man. He gives freely, and it must be received freely. God will not negotiate with you and reach a settlement with you. You accept His terms or none at all. And let me give you those terms. And they are very simple and listen very carefully. Here they are. If you remember nothing else, remember this.
Here are the terms of grace. God says, I will get all the credit and you will get all the benefits.
Isn't that amazing? I will get all the credit, you will get all the benefit, but no sharing and no mixing of the two. And so what that means is if you want to receive the grace of God to forgive you of your sins and give you a new life and start your life afresh, you come to Him, how? Empty handed. And if you're wealthy by the world standard, wise by the world standard, powerful by the world standard, come before God as if you have nothing because from God's perspective, you are utterly destitute, bankrupt, have absolutely nothing. And so the invitation is, come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power.
Come empty handed. I plead with you, come empty handed. These are His terms. Come as simple as a child, come as weak and needy, as if you were wounded because God loves to exalt those who will humbly give Him all the credit and all the glory. And that's the Gospel, my dear, dear sinner friend. And that's why it is life changing. And that is why it is a shocking reversal. And that's why when you tell people the Gospel, their first response is something like, ‘you mean I mustn't do anything? I mustn't do anything? You mean there's nothing I can do to earn it? But it seems too easy, it seems too simple.’ It wasn't easy for God. It wasn't simple for Christ. But that seems ridiculous. If I receive this Gospel, I'm forgiven, my sins are blotted out.
The Gospel is clear. You come empty handed, you hand your life over to Him, He forgives you, you get all the benefits, He gets all the credit. Will you? Will you respond? Will you not respond in the words of the Hymn? Today, I will arise and go to Jesus, and He will embrace me in His arms, in the arms of my dear Savior. Oh, there are ten thousand charms. And Mary looks at this and she rejoices.
Mary's song is stanzas that really sing of grace, marvelous grace. And it is personal, stunningly personal. And then a shocking reversal, but there's a final stanza in her song.
Look back to our text for the third part of this wonderful hymn of praise, The Magnificat, verse 54. Mary sings this, “He has given help to Israel, His servant, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and His seed forever.” It's personal, it's a reversal.
Thirdly, God's grace is steadfastly faithful. Steadfastly faithful. What Mary remembers here is what she's about to give birth, to what she remembers here is what she's about to give birth to, is fulfillment of a promise given 2,000 years prior. God told Abraham, you remember that his seed, singular, his descendant, singular, through that one descendant, all nations will be blessed. God told Moses, a prophet like him would rise up and speak the word of God, Deuteronomy 18: 19, the prophet, the God man. God spoke to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Micah, Malachi, Haggai, and with all of these prophets, he said, I'm going to have a new covenant, and I'm going to send my Messiah. I'm going to bear the sins of Israel and Gentiles, and I'm going to defeat Israel's enemies and return her to glory, and all of my promises will come to pass.
And you know what Mary realizes? Right now, what is stirring in her womb is the yes to all of those promises. God has not forgotten. God didn't make empty promises. God didn't promise, but then get thwarted by circumstances. You see, a grace that can promise but not deliver is no grace at all. Maybe you've been at the receiving end of a promise that never materialized, and it's a disappointing thing. Listen, when God makes gracious promises, He means to keep every single one of them. And He does. He doesn't randomly throw out statements that can't be fulfilled or He can't fulfill. He said, I will send Messiah, I will forgive everyone who believes in Him, I will send My Spirit, I will come for you, I will prepare a place for you, I will take you home to be with Me, I will wipe away every tear, every sorrow, you will forever be with Me in My presence, face to face.
Remember David's cry in Psalm 103, verse 2? “Bless Yahweh, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits.” Our tendency as Christians is to be as strong in our faith as the recollection of our latest blessing. We forget the benefits, all the benefits that God has poured out on us in our lives. That's our tendency, that's our nature. What is it to forget? That's why one of the most repeated words in the Old Testament is the word remember. Remember, remember, well, this is one of the ways, beloved, in which we differ so profoundly from God. God simply does not know how to forget His promises. Once God makes a promise to His people, it is set in stone, it is as good as done, it's forever. That promise cannot be rescinded, that promise cannot be broken, it will never be forgotten. Beloved, do you know the exciting thing about the incarnation? Christ coming to rescue us is that you could say every promise, every single promise that led up to the first coming of Christ was fulfilled.
Every single one of them was fulfilled completely. So what should we say then about every promise that leads up to the second coming of Jesus? God's grace is steadfastly faithful. The wonderful thing about free grace is that it's free at both ends. It's free when you receive it, it's free when you get it. It's free in its offering, giving, it's free in its securing and keeping. If God gave it to you because of some goodness in you, because you ticked a box, you did something correct, well then it would require some goodness in you to secure it, wouldn't it? But if God delights to clothe the prodigal son, if He delights to forgive the weeping sinner at His feet, if He receives the tax collector who is earnestly beating His chest, obviously He delights to give this for free. And if there was no price tag at the beginning, there is no interest charge later on. And if you couldn't earn it in the first place, you can't keep it by paying installments. It's free. And God makes this promise that is going to keep, and it is He who does so.
Yes, He uses the means of your persevering faith, which He enables, He authors, and you persevere to the end, but it's grace at the beginning, grace in the middle and grace at the end.
In his days, CS. Lewis was widely considered to be the most learned man in the world, and they say that he read nearly everything significant or important to read classically, philosophically, and religiously. And to the envy of all of us, he could remember absolutely everything he read to the Word. Everything. You asked me what you read earlier this morning, I'm like, I can't remember. But before he came to Christ, he was an atheist, and he'd absorbed all of these religions, absorbed all of these philosophies. And at one point, there was a conference on comparative religions after he became a man of God. And there were all these people trying to debate the similarities and differences between these religions. And so somebody said, look, is Christianity really unique? Is it really that different? Is it what makes it different from the rest? And it was this back and forth, back and forth.
Lewis at this point walked into the room a little early for his presentation, noticed all the squabbling, and he asked, well, what are you arguing about? They said, well, we're trying to find out the difference between Christianity and every other religion. And Lewis said: oh, that's easy.
Of course, when you read like him and seen and had seen and compared as much as he'd compared, it's easy. And he remembered everything. And this was his answer:Oh, that's easy. It's grace. That's it.
It's grace. And the room fell silent. Lewis continued to say to them that Christianity uniquely claims that God's love comes free of charge with no strings attached.
No religion makes that claim. And after a moment, people began to say Lewis had a point because in Buddhism, there's an eightfold path to enlightenment. It's not free.
In Hinduism, it's karma, and your actions continually affect the way the world treats you. And there's nothing that happens that isn't set in motion by your actions. In Islam, there's a strict slavish submission to Allah that may or may not bring eternal reward. But Christianity says, grace, grace, stunningly personal, shocking reversal, and steadfastly faithful.
Have you received it this morning? Have you received it?
I pray you have. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this song of Mary, for this Magnificat.
What a joyful, mighty thing that grace reaches down to us by name and is willing to take us as we are. Poor, needy, weak, wounded, sick, and sore. Poor in spirit. So long as we come as those who need a physician, grace will find us. As long as we come as those who are empty of ourselves, grace will fill us. As long as we come as those who cannot walk, grace will heal us.
As long as we come as those who recognize that we are dead in trespasses and sin, dead toward you, grace will quicken us and resurrect us. Lord, I pray for every soul here this morning.
Every soul that, that no one will say no to the gift of Jesus Christ freely offered, freely given. That everyone here can go out with the assurance that he or she has received Christ as Lord and Savior, believed, received and taken him in as God's stunning reversal, God giving us what we couldn't take on our own and what we didn't deserve when we deserved the exact opposite.
Oh Lord, have mercy and help us, help us treasure this marvelous grace.
Free grace at the beginning, free grace in the middle, free grace at the end. And Father, I pray that your Spirit would be working among hearts, even now, converting, changing, turning, convicting. And Lord, I pray that we would then rest in the joy that grace is steadfastly faithful. That if you're in it, if we're in it, it cannot be lost. And now, Lord, this morning, grant us the same magnification of you, the same kind of joy and exultation in you that Mary felt.
It's when we know this grace, this kind of grace, this marvelous grace, that it's truly amazing to us. So bless your word to our hearts this morning and every heart here, Lord.
May it lay low before you in humility and thanksgiving and praise.
May we never rob you an ounce of the glory that belongs to you.
We thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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