Luke 1:39-56 Joyful Worship

. Now, uh the gospel of Luke chapter 1 and we are going to consider versus 39 through 56 39 through 56. I believe this is in page eight hundred fif6 or something in your Pals. uh so page 1000 thousand is my mistake there. 
It’s actually page eight hundred fifty6 something in your pew Bibles. Again, as I said, uh gospel of Luke, chapter 1, verses 39 through 56, and just pay attention to what is going on and what we are going to read this morning look seems to be very concerned about certainty and who this Jesus that he’s talking about is. And for that, he has prepared a parallel in the story between John the Baptist and his parents, and then Jesus Christ and his parents as well. 
That is, Mary and and Elizabeth for our reading this morning. And if you come from a Roman Catholic background, like I did, um, then these passages tend to make us very, very nervous, because the worship that there is to marry in the Roman Catholic circles. But fear not I hope I can clarify that for you this morning and we are going to see what book is really doing here in these passages. 
So if you are there, please attend to hear the rhyth of God’s holian inspired word. This is God’s word. In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth, and when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your wom and why is it granted to me that the mother of my lord should come to me? 
for behold, when the sound of your grating came to my ears, the babying my woman liped for joy, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord, and Mary said, my soul magnifieth the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant, for behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy for those who fear him from generation to generation, he has shown strength with with his arm. he has scattered the proud and thoughts of their hearts. he has brought down the mighty from the thrones and exalted those of humble state. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. he has helped his servant, Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our to her fathers to Abraham and to his offspring for ever, and Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home, as far the reading of God’s word you may be se that. Now, um, dear congregation of the Lord, uh, in the year 431 AD, that is Han Domine, the whole church was involved in this very heavy theological controversy. and in this controversy, there were two major players. 
Cyril, bishop of Alexandria on the one hand, who affirmed that the vir Mary was the bearer of God, the carrier of God, and on the other hand, you had nestorious bishop of Constantinople, who affirmed that the virgin Mary was the carrier, the bearer of Christ. Now you may hear to those two designations and think there is no difference at all, but the truth is that behind this controversy lighted the very identity of Jesus Christ, is Jesus more than in an empowered human being? Is that who he is? 
If the answer is, no, Jesus is just an empowered, the special, illumin illuminated human being, then you need to affirm Jesus’ excuse me, Mary is the bearer of Christ. But on the other hand, if Jesus is God in the flesh, then it follows them that Mary is the bearer, the carrier of God himself. So as you can see, this is a very important theological issue, and obviously, we, as Bible believing Christians, we want to affirm with Cyril that the virgin Mary was indeed the bearer, the carrier, of God, which is actually what we find here in our text this morning, but now the question is, how does a pregnant girl who was probably a teenager 2 years ago affect her lives today? 
And how are we to react to the idea that God himself became flesh and was coming and came to this world? And you will find the answer to that in our theme for this morning, our theme is in joyful worship, we are to react in joyful worship, and we will see this theme in in two parts from Elizabeth that is joyful worship from Elizabeth, and second joyful worship from Mary, and you will see you will find those points in page four. So let’s see the first part from a joyful worship from Elizabeth. 
Now listen to a verses 39 and verse 39, excuse me, uh again, in those days, uh Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. Now here’s the thing. Have you thought about what is going on here? 
I mean, how do we imagine this happened? Did Mary took the train? Maybe the arm track and then arrive to the hill country of Judah or or maybe more realistic? 
Did Mary request a canal through her Uber app in her phone and then went down to Elizabeth? moreover, we read that that Mary greeted Elizabeth, and we tend to think that this grieving is a normal thing to do. I mean, when you walk in a certain place and you are entering in, it’s generally a good idea to start with a good morning or at least hello, how are you? 
Right? That’s just good manners. but none of us in reading this story in this specific verse will assign any special thing or any special meaning to a merehello would we? that here is where I believe our western mines attend to betray us in those ancient cultures, boys and girls, greetings are filled with conventions with traditions and with meanings. 
For example, it was always, always the lesser one in every aspect, socially financially, spiritually, who is under the obligation to greet the superior one. doesn’t matter your age, if you were eight, but rich and and cultured and of a big family, then an older person needed to greet you because you are superior to them, socially, spiritually, financially speaking. So is the lesser one who owes everything to the superior one? That’s the convention, that’s what how things worked in those times. 
In that sense, Mary entered entering into Elizabeth’s house and saying hello is not only good manners, it’s also expected. It’s her obligation to perform this duty towards Elizabeth, and from all perspective, if you think about it, Mary is the inferior one. She is an outcast, as you remember last week, she lived outside of Judah. 
She is poor, she is younger in age, and she is not married with a priest like Elizabeth is, and in those days that meant distinction, superieririty, Elizabeth is the superior one. So as you can see here, there is a lot of meaning behind this normal hello. Mary is acting according to her place given by her culture, but if that is the case, then, why am I making a big fuss about it? 
It seems that after all this is a normal hello, isn’t it? Well, it becomes a big thing because of what comes later on, Elizabeth’s answer and we are going to divide it in two parts, let’s see the first part, and when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby jumped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, blessed are you among women I’m blessed is the fruit of your woman. see, this is why I making a big fuss about the greeting because the coming of the kingdom of God has and will change every single thing for ever that includes cultural conventions. This is not a normal visit that the announcement of the coming of Jesus has changed how the world functions, and we are going to see it as I said peace by piece, not as, for example, in these verses, the visititation of Mary is followed up by an action of the holy spirit upon those who are around Mary, the Holy spirit touches the heart of the baby, and in response, he jumps out of joy and Elizabeth, too, she’s filled with the holy spread after an add this visitation, so the superior being blessed by the inferior, is is what’s happening here. 
Mary comes is a blessing to Elizabeth that is contrary to the culture, and the question is, why has this happened then is it because of Mary and who she is? Is it because she is such a worth lady girl who deserves to bless other people? No, it’s actually because of what Mary is bringing with her, namely, baby Jesus, who is already being formed in the womb of Mary in other words, seeing Mary’s visit Jesus, too, is coming to visit Elizabeth and John, but there is another thing going on here. 
Elizabeth, in response declares a benediction, a blessing upon Mary and upon her baby. Now we Protestants as I as I said, we do get really, really nervous about this text. We we say things like, well, Mary is really not that important. 
I mean, uh if she would have said no to the angel, then God would have found another person to have this baby through, and and that might be true, except that it was God’s own decree that Jesus will be delivered through Mary and not through any one else. that’s why we have it in Scriptures. It is in that sense that Elizabeth is declaring this especial blessing of her Mary. She is blessed, not because in anything about herself or in herself she’s blessed because she is the receptacle of something that is unique and will never happen again. 
She will be the woman that will bear God himself in the flesh. So in that sense she occupies a unique role in the history of salvation. No one else can say that she has a broad god in the flesh, and all of that as we have seen already in in last week’s sermon is God’s undeserved, unmerited favor towards Mary. that but then the question becomes, does it not, what does that have to do with us? 
I mean, good for Mary, but what about us? Well, let me tell you that it has a lot to do with us. In this history that we are reading right now this morning, we are standing next to Elizabeth and next to baby John. 
We two are receiving right now the dissipation of the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, and he is announcing to us this morning the good news, the good tidings of comfort and joy through the preaching of the word. He is announcing that we can be forgiven accepted before the Father because of Jesus Christ, so in that sense, this is visititation of the text repeats itself every single time that you hear the gospel. It comes to us every single Sunday. 
It is announced to us through scriptures, and then the question is, what are we to do then? Well, just like Elizabeth, we are to react enjoy. We are to bless the name of Jesus because he has brought salvation. and this news turned the world and its conventions upside down, listened how the story continues, and why is this granted to me that the mother of my lord should come to me? 
for behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my greetings, excuse me, came to your to my ears, the baby, in my womb jumped for joy, and blessed is she who believed in that in that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. So have you heard what what what is happening here the social tables have turned in this visititation. the lists of it with all her distinction, with all her money, with all her societal, a value that culture in those days have assigned to her, is actually recognizing that spiritually speaking, she is the inferior one. Mary, the young girl, becomes superior, blessed, because of baby Jesus, and this baby is in all respects superior to baby John. 
Mary, the young girl, carries in herself. God in the flesh, and and turning the tables, by the way, signals this basic principle of how the kingdom of God works in our in our lives, namely, that gat doesn work according to our conventions. gatin work according to our culture. In fact, there is no culture in this world that is, happy and accommodated to the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
God actually loves to ourcome every single church culture to transform them so they match as scriptures as much as it is possible in this life. So let’s apply that principle to us, and let me ask you, who who are the important ones around us to day and this world, especially for our younger brothers and sisters aren’t they the ones who have money the famous ones, the influencers? Aren’t those the ones who have thousands of followers in Instagram and then be real and other platforms? 
We see them from afar, do we note? Everyone wants to be like them. We want to buy their same products, we want to look like them, we want to dress like them, we want to speak like they speak. 
Everyone wants what they have, and society tends to gravitate around and does it not? We are taught to look like them. We are taught to follow them. but the gospel of Jesus Christ Christ teaches us that we need to renounce yes, renounce to those conventions our value, our identity is not found in seeking to be great in the eyes of the world, but in seeking to be servants before God in humbling ourselves, in lowering down yourself, and then recognizing that in Jesus Christ you have everything. 
This is, in other words, the self abandoning nature of the gospel. You don’t need to cling to what you have, you don’t need to cling to what you want to accomplish in this life to your own interest, you actually need to reject all of those for Jesus Christ and depend in him alone to be confronted with theicit of Christ right here and right now means that there are two responses to that confrontation and that visit. We bless his name and we react in joyful worship towards him, or we reject him, and we perish. 
There is no third way, there is no middle way. We bless his name and we are joyful in him, or we reject him and we perish. The text here is designed in such a way, though, that Elizabeth and John himself become our guides, so in seeing them reacting in joy, reacting in blessing the Lord Jesus Christ, we too follow their example and rejoice and praise his name for what he has come to do. 
Now, let us move to our second point, joyful worship from Mary, and and in the previous point we saw how Elizabeth was a blessing Mary and baby Jesus. Now we get to see Mary’s response to that blessing, and there are actually two parts in Mary’s response as well. She praises God for what God has done for her, and then she prayises God for what God has done for his people. 
Listen to verses 47 and 48. My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant, for behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed not is something important here. marries some of praise has a very important tone. She praises God because he has looked upon her with favor. 
She doesn’t praise God because she is such a good person and her merits are so good and she is able to save herself. She praises God because he has looked upon herself with favor upon her with favor, excuse me So what I’m trying to say here, voice and girls, is that Mary is praising God because she has done nothing to deserve being the carrier, the bearer of God, and God could have found some one worthier, that is true, some one better, someone from among the powerful of the world, but instead he used this lowly, almost forgotten and forsaken girl, and in that sense isn’t Mary extend standing next to us and signaling to us what we need to do. You see Mary is our example in how we are to worship God. 
When we worship God, we need to recognize that we bring nothing with ourselves. Can our money do anything before God? Can can learning and our learned minds do anything before God? 
Can our status the things that we have done and we have accomplished earn us anything before God? No, not really. And so we realized that we are empty, that we are totally unable to bring something worthy before God, but that even then God himself has looked down from heaven, has sent his son in the flesh and has called us to himself, and because of that we are his people. in Jesus, we have been showered with God’s favor. 
We have been imputed, imposed upon us, clothed over us, Christ’s righteousness, and what what what what have we done to the ser it? think about it. What have you done to deserve that? 
We didn’t do anything, and because we didn’t deserve it, nor amerited, we are to worship God, we are to magnify his name, not only in sun, by the way, but with our lives, not only at church, but with our families, not only with with friends, but in the world as well. Now, look at verses 49 and 50, for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercies for those who fear him from generation to generation. Now have you not so far the tone of this song once and again the accent falls in God and everything that he has done for Mary God and his actions are the center of this song. 
This is a song of deliverance even for us to day, and this is a good example for us even to day. You see the problem with our modern worship music does not lie with the instruments. There’s not such a thing as the instrument of the devil. 
That that is just an instrument. The problem lies with the accent of our lyrics, what we think about, in other words, our modern music pretty much imitates the world’s music in its concerns, and so we love to sing about feeling loved, we love to sing about meaningless repetitions, fire 20 times, come down 60 times. We love music that makes us feel that we are at the center, but when we sing about God’s sovereignty, when we sing about God’s mighty actions of salvation, about his impossibility that is he doesn’t change, or he’s not affected by us, his eternity, he’s justice, and so on, when we sing about God himself, suddenly we don’t feel in the right mood, do we suddenly we feel like it is not touching our feelings as as as we should as we should feel. 
God centered songs, a bilically informed theologically robust, songs that echo or despair, but then we culminate them with joy, knowing that godess is still in control, like like we see in the psalms, or or inner text right here those kind of songs are no longer popular. Could it be? This is just my speculation. 
Could it be that we we feel in that way because we are too concerned about ourselves and and and we are too concerned about how we feel instead of being concerned about God, maybe, as I said, this is just my speculation. But also not this, um the Covenant nature of Mary’s song, a god himself has tied himself with his people from generation to generation, and that never stops, and this is a great comfort, by the way, for you and for me, brothers and sisters at the god of a scriptures, this god, who loves to show his goodness to you, but not only to you to you and to your children. If you want to know what is going to happen to your children and to your grandchildren, then look at this passage. 
His mercy Mary says, is for those who fear him from generation to generation that is his mercy will be experienced by me by my children, by my grands, my grandchildren, by by their children as well, and so on from generation to generation. Why? Because this is how God works our call brothers and sisters is to trust in this god of the covenant. 
Our call is to realize that afflictions they will come. for sure, and an our children? Oh, they will have afflictions and sufferings are as well and then doubts sometimes will happen as well. Departures from from the faith, maybe will come too, but we are not called to look at those things and to despair, as if God could not conquer over them, as if those were a mystery to him, or cause to trust in the god of the covenant. 
Have you seen children walking away from the faith? Well, fear not. God is still in control. 
He is the god of the continent, brothers and sisters. He may still call them to himself that is our hope that is her trust. You may not live to see it. 
You may not even see it, but you are to hope in God, who saves us his people and our children, not because of us, but despite of us. The foremost example of that is the ruined state that the people of Israel find themselves in in this text, seeing God’s promises to fruition solely with this young burden girl, not because of them, they have forgotten about God, not because they are a great people, they were not ah, but because of the covenant, and because of ah God because of what God has done and is doing through this lowly young virgin girl, and since and since we have come to belong to him to this god of the covenant, then we two are to worship him, we too are to seek him, and that is going to happen from generation to generation, because this is the gall of the covenant. Now listen to verses 51 52 he has shown the strength with his arm. he has scattered the prow in the thoughts of their hearts. he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble state. and and somehow we have come to understand humility in a different sense than scriptures thus. 
For example, we say things like oh, he’s of humble origins or and by that we mean, by the way, oh, he’s poor. His parents were poor, or or we say, mine is a humble house, and by that we mean we don’t have a lot of a stuff, and probably as shiny and stuff fancies stuff, but that is not what the scriptures mean by humbleness when scriptures talk about the mighty and the low, the rich and the poor, especially in poetry, they are talking about an attitude of the heart, more more than anything else. The strong, the proud of heart is the one who believes that he needs no one, not even God, and then rejects him, just like we saw a few months ago with Saul, his efforts, his virtues, his good deeds are good enough. in the end, they say, God will see my good works, he will see my good deeds, and he will realize that I amm better with my good works, and he will certainly wink at me and up in heavens for me. 
That person is the person that is proud of heart. It denies the need of Jesus Christ, and on the contrary, the person who looks at himself and sees that even our best efforts are tainted with sin, the person who knows that he is condemned before God that deserves nothing and then comes to him and pleads for mercy before God in Jesus Christ, then that is the humble so Mary’s song is bidding us to look at ourselves and to realize that we can count we cannot count with our own efforts before God. She’s pointing us to confess our inability before God, and to abandon our pride, so we can be exalted in Jesus Christ. and yes, you heard that right so you and I can be exalted in Jesus Christ. 
God will exalt his people, and if you are feeling upward about it, if you are feeling like yi, I don’t I don’t like that well, it’s because we are too proud. We think God shouldn’t do that exalting me? No, God cannot do that. but think about it who are we to say God what to do? 
God can do whatever he wants and he will exalt his people in Jesus Christ, accepted, believe it, be humbled. Listen to the next verses. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. 
He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. May aerry song again is Pointinus not to herself, but P pointinus about about God showing us what he has done, he is showing us, she’s showing us, excuse me the unchanging nature of God God in the past is is is she saying He has delivered his people in the past he rescued them. in the past he helped them when they were defenseless. He was their rock. 
He was their salvation. He was their provider and Mary then is calling us how Israel was delivered from Egypt, how Israel was delivered from their enemies, how they were defended from the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, and so on. And then she asked us to remember unworthy people like Rahab, like Ruth, God blessing the lonly, like David and Samuel, and then in showing us this picture of lowly people being blessed by God and showing us this picture of a people being rescued by him, and Mary is inviting us to realize that this god who doesn’t change will do the same for us too. because God doesn’t change, brother brothers and sisters, you can be certain, you can be sure that this same god will deliver you. this same god will provide for you. 
In other words, Mary is teaching us to go to a scriptures and to realize that the same god who delivered the people of Israel from the Egyptians can deliver you to day from sin and misery. This is the same god who will empower you to walk in faith before him, the same god who will sustain you through the wilderness of this world. This is the same god that will walk with you in your infirmities, in the midst of your loneliness, in the midst of anxiety and depression, in the mist of uncertainties. 
This is the kind of God that you can cry in despair, boys and girls, when life make no makes no sense, because this God will show his power in your life just as he did in the past. She doesn’t change. That is why these verses are in past time they call us to remember and to be assured that as he has acted in the past, so he will act to day in our lives, nothing is impossible for God, remember we read it last week. 
He has rescued you in Jesus Christ, and during your lifetime he will sustain you as he sustained his people in the past. That is the big point of this verse. And why is that? 
why is that verse 55 as he spoke to our fathers to Abraham and to his offspring for forever, your answer because he is the god of the covenant, not as the emphasis on god on the spawn once and again and again, for from the beginning of the poem all of it is filled with God’s actions. It is God who sees the lowly, it is God who acts wonderfully, it is God who rescues his people, it is God who feels them. It is God who does wonderful things for them and God who fulfills his promises. 
And what is the best promise of all? Think about it that a long time ago thousands of years ago, God came to this 100 year old man, old raky and shaky and promised him that his offspring will be a blessing to the nations, but he was old. Bible says almost dead, and with no children, and his wife, too old, almost dead she listens and she laughs. 
Can God really do that? and later in the story, a baby is born, but if you remembering him, the nations were not blessed, actually the contrary, and soon the little children, the little child excuse me had children and they became a clan and then they became a nation and still Israel was not a blessing to the nations. In fact, the shock was that Israel became just like the nations around them. and then they were exiled, and then they returned, but it was not the same, was it? 
and in an effort to be distinct from the world, they isolated themselves. They ran away from the world. It seemed then once again that the promises of God had failed. but then we find this young virgin, lowly girl, and the fruit of her womb is not a simple human being is god in the flesh Jesus Christ, and in him in him we behold the good news of the gospel, the long awaited fulfillment. 
True, this Jesus god man will have to die on the cross. You know that his blood will touch the ground, just like Abel, but contrary to Abel’s blood that curs the ground, Jesus’ blood will cleanse the earth, and his death and resurrection will become a blessing to the nations, and thousands upon thousands of millions throughout history will become god’s people, and if we look around us congregation this morning, we will see again that God has fulfilled his promises because who are you and what are you? You are God’s people you belong to him. 
We have been accepted before God in Jesus Christ. We are Abraham’s true seed. We belong to his family and in him you and I are blessed. 
So what are we to do? We are to worship him. I already told you that. 
We are wor to worship him in joy because he has brought salvation to us. Let’s pray. Thank you, father, for the salvation that you have brought to us in Jesus Christ. 
We belong to you. We are your people. We are those who have been adopted because of Jesus Christ. 
We thank you for that salvation. We thank you for the fulfillment of your promises. We thank you that you are the God who never changes. 
So, lord, as we as sing about your goodness, and as we contemplate what it means to worship you, help us to do so, not only in song, but to do it with the whole of our lives in everything and everywhere we go in Jesus name we pray. Amen.