Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 1:39-56
before we start let me just say thanks to our band these guys do a fantastic job leading us in worship and they don't do it for us to clap for them I assure you but I want them to know that we appreciate them and this morning in rehearsal we were all here early and we had technical difficulties galore and the spirit in the group was good nobody was sour nobody griped nobody complained we figured it out and pieced it together and I appreciate them in their attitude and their spirit of service take your Bible out find the gospel of Luke and you can also take your bulletin out there's a should be an insert in your bulletin if you like to follow along there our passage is Luke chapter one beginning in verse 39 the theme verse for the gospel of Luke we have mentioned every week so far and I intend on mentioning it every Sunday that we study the gospel of Luke is Luke 19 10 and in case you have trouble remembering Luke 19 10 there it is the son of man came to seek and to save the lost that one big idea governs everything that you see in the gospel of Luke and we're going to see that that's true this morning on the top of your outline there is what we call the big idea of the passage and I'm going to give that to you before we jump in this morning the big idea of these verses is this God is calling people to believe what he has done through Jesus and to celebrate what he has done through Jesus we talk a lot about believing do you trust do you have faith do you believe in Jesus and that's part of what we see this morning God is calling us he wants us to believe what he has done through Jesus but he also wants us to celebrate what he has done through Jesus Luke chapter one beginning in verse 39 it's a story of Mary who is pregnant visiting her relative Elizabeth who was also pregnant and when the two ladies get together Elizabeth has a few things to say to Mary and Mary has a song that she's going to sing and the song that Mary sings is the first of four songs in the first part of the gospel of Luke and these are on your outline I believe I listed them out there's four of them the first one is is Mary she sings a song called the Magnificate Zechariah sings a song called the Benedictus the angel sing the Gloria and Simeon sings the Nuke Demetus and those are Latin words they come from the first word in each of those songs in the Latin translation of the New Testament so when you read through Latin and you get to Mary's song the first word is Magnificate Zechariah the first word is Benedictus the angels the first word is Gloria and Simeon the first word is Nuke Demetus and these songs have been sung they've been part of Christian worship from the time that they were written they have been sung in cathedrals they have been chanted by monks in monasteries they have been put to what we call classical music to sort of symphonic music by people like Bach and they've been put to popular contemporary Christian music by people like Chris Tomlin and so whatever your musical taste you can find somebody who has taken one of these songs and many of these songs and adapted them to a style of Christian worship our goal this morning is really simple we're gonna read the story about Mary and Elizabeth meeting and read Mary's song we're gonna try to learn what does it look like to believe and to celebrate what God has done for us through Jesus Christ and then we are going to do that we're gonna respond believing the truth about Jesus and celebrating the truth about Jesus so you follow along as I read our text Luke chapter one beginning in verse 39 and we'll read all the way to verse 56 so this is the word of God in those days Mary arose and she went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah and she entered the house of Zechariah in 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 the loud cry blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb and why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me for behold when the sound of your greeting came to my ears the baby in my womb leaped for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord and Mary said or you could literally say Mary saying my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant for behold from now on all generations will call me blessed for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation he has shown strength with his arm he has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate he has filled the hungry with good things in the rich he has sent away he has sent empty away he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers to abraham and to his offspring forever and Mary remained with her about three months and then she returned to her home let's pray father we do welcome your spirit into our gathering this morning and father just as your spirit inspired the words that we just read we pray that your spirit would illuminate them and make them clear to us that we would understand what you're calling us to to believe the truth about your son and to celebrate the truth about your son father give us wisdom give us understanding give us hearts to respond to you even this morning we ask it in Jesus name amen. I want you to think about celebrations and the words celebrate in our culture in the United States of America think for a minute about some of the things that we celebrate we celebrate for one thing life milestones and so I came up with a list of life milestones we celebrate birthdays we celebrate graduations we celebrate weddings we celebrate babies we celebrate anniversaries and you think about the celebrations for all of those things and and what you've experienced and what they look like we get together with a group of people and there's usually laughter and joy and joking and and pleasant emotions and usually there's food food is always a good way to celebrate so we get together we have something to eat maybe there's some sort of music if you're not having this celebration at the Baptist fellowship hall maybe you even have dancing but you do a lot of fun things and you celebrate all of these good life milestones another thing we celebrate is holidays and we celebrate new years we celebrate Valentine's Day we celebrated just recently the 4th of July we celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever and again you know how these celebrations usually look we get together with maybe friends or family there's usually a lot of food involved sometimes there's gift giving involved sometimes there's music but you know what it looks like to celebrate whether it's a a life event whether that's a holiday but maybe the best example of celebration in the United States that I could come up with is sports we celebrate sports in the United States of America and let's be honest sports is the one area in our culture where it is really socially acceptable to celebrate with no restraint lots of things we celebrate but we sort of put up a wall and we sort of try to act somewhat reserved and dignified but when it comes to sports we lose all of that and so I'll give you a few examples when we lived in Kingfisher there was a man in our church who owned a bank and through his bank he bought season tickets to the Oklahoma City Thunder and there were really great seats about eight rows up right behind the Thunder bench and so when somebody not appealing to him was in town every now and then we got to go to the Thunder game we got to sit right there eight rows back behind the bench and the seats are awesome they're one row above the camera view so if you watch on TV if you are ever looking for me on TV I was one row up above where the camera shows but there we were and you can see perfectly from those seats this man he's known as the Thunder super fan and he sits in the end zone down by the Thunder bench and every game that's him he's got his megaphone and he's got some type of body paint he was feeling patriotic today so he did a little flag on he did a big flag on his belly and he's got a cape on and he's got his wrestling mask and he's got his megaphone and usually he wears suspenders with this outfit no shirt but suspenders and he'll come down when the opposing team is shooting free throws and he'll dance around and yell and holler in his megaphone and I just ask you where else in our society and culture is this acceptable nowhere you can't do this at work you can't do it on Sunday morning you can wear a lot of things to church at a manual you cannot wear this you cannot come in with your athletic shorts and suspenders and your belly painted it's not acceptable but you go to a sporting event and you say this guy's awesome this guy is the greatest there he is he's half naked he's got suspenders and body paint and a mask and a megaphone this guy is the Thunder super fan here's another example it's not just basketball it's also football I will regretfully admit to you I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan and there's not a lot to be a fan about but I am a Dallas Cowboys fan and so that means two times every season Dallas Cowboys fans have to see that the pig pin Washington Redskins what the pigs have to do with the Redskins I have no idea but these guys come and they wear their dresses and they wear their fancy hats and they wear their frilly gloves and they put on a pig snout I don't know where that came from there's probably a story behind it but they put on a pig snout and there they are the pig pin cheering for the game and again I say to you this is not socially acceptable for men to walk around in most cities this is not socially acceptable for men to walk around with dresses and wigs and pig snouts and yet we watch them at a football game and we say those guys are great they know how to cheer on their fans the pig pin we need to put them right there on the front row make sure the camera shows them on tv all throughout the game we celebrate sports and we do it without reservation we know how to do that and you're sitting there and you're saying well they do I don't go to thunder basketball games with shorts and a suspender and a cape and a mask and I don't go to football games wearing a dress and a pig snout I don't do that sort of thing but listen we know how to celebrate when it comes to sports here's another example of celebration a couple of years ago I went to the OUOSU bedlam football game so this is Oklahoma Sooners versus Oklahoma State Cowboys in-state rivalry the game was at Oklahoma State in Stillwater and the year that I win is a couple years back OU was heavily heavily favored to win it was towards the end of the season and OU was making a nice run through conference play everyone just thought OU was going to demolish the Cowboys this is the end of the game and you can tell by the crowd rushing the field that Oklahoma State absolutely dominated the football game from beginning opening kickoff to the end it was I'm sorry Corey it was a beat down Oklahoma State just trashed them and I'm telling you that during that football game I really could care less about either these teams but during that football game in Stillwater with all of these OUOSU fans there was some serious celebration and it didn't look like this that was a really nice play I mean it was enthusiastic hands were in the air high five and chest bump and scream and yelling at their top of the lungs crying tears of joy they were so excited the final whistle blew they filled the field rushing out of the stands they ripped both of the gold posts down carried them sort of in circles around the bottom of the stadium for about 40 minutes we just stayed and watched I was not in on that but watch them in all of this wild celebration and again you say to me okay that's a bunch of college kids half of them were probably drunk they were excited I don't dress up crazy for football or basketball I don't rush the field after sporting events some people do that yes but I don't know how to do that and if that's you still in denial I would just say the next time your kids or grandkids or great-grandkids play soccer will you invite me to the game and whether you realize it or not you look a lot more like that than you know we know how to celebrate when it comes to sports now listen to me in Luke 1 we see a picture of Elizabeth and Mary and they're talking and they're singing about what God is doing through them for the sake of the world and what you see is people who yes believe the truth we get that it's sort of a head and a heart thing and we we know what it means to believe but they also celebrate what God is doing in them and through them and for them God is calling people to believe what he has done through Jesus and to celebrate what he has done through Jesus which leads me to this question we're going to break down the passage like this in our lives what does faith-filled celebratory worship look like if we're going to do this if we're going to respond to what God is calling us to do what does this kind of worship filled with faith and celebratory in nature what does it look like seven ideas and some of them we will talk about very quickly some will talk about a little more in depth number one faith-filled celebratory worship is spiritual in origin and that is not a typo that s in spiritual is supposed to be capital so i'm not just saying it's sort of a mushy gushy feeling spiritual thing i'm saying that this kind of worship comes from capital s the holy spirit it is spiritual in nature this is how it's always been you can look back into the Old Testament before Jesus came you can read Jeremiah 31 and God said look in the new covenant when Jesus comes here's how it's going to be i'm going to send my spirit to do a work in their life and once my spirit capital s comes and does a work in their life they're going to know me all of them from the least to the greatest they're going to know me and they're going to love me and they're going to keep my commandments but it begins with the work that i'm going to do in their life you can flip over the book of Ezekiel chapter 36 where the prophet says look the days are coming where i will pour out my spirit on these people i will remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh and i will move them to love me and to obey me and to know me first i do a work in their life and then they're going to respond and that's exactly what you see in this passage last week we looked at Luke chapter 1 verse 15 talked about John the Baptist being filled with the holy spirit capital s from conception and we understand in the verses we just read that when Mary i.e. Jesus in her womb comes into his presence he's jumping around in Elizabeth's womb that's not like bad tacos the night before that's the Holy Spirit inspiring John to respond we read about Elizabeth in Luke chapter 1 verse 41 and it says that she was filled with the spirit and then she speaks verse 42 43 44 45 all of her words inspired by the Holy Spirit of God even Mary look what Mary says because her song is a response to God's work in her life she begins in verse 47 and she says my spirit rejoices in God my Savior God has saved me i'm not a sinless person i'm not a righteous person i'm not a good person i am a sinner in need of a Savior in God has saved me he's done a work in my life he's opened my heart so that i could believe the truth about him he's changed me he's taken out my heart of stone and given me a heart of flesh and here's my response i'm going to sing in worship to God understand that Mary is not held up as an object for your faith but as a model for faith and the only thing that Mary is commended for the only thing she gets a thumbs up or a pat on the back for is that she believes God Elizabeth says this in verse 45 blessed is she Mary who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord she was a sinner who believed and trusted in the saving promises of God because God had done a work in her life a spiritual work capital-less spiritual and her response was faith-filled celebratory worship number two faith-filled celebratory worship is God centered in focus meaning it's not about us and the benefits that we get from God but it's about God and who he is and what he's done there's a very subtle difference sometimes you go to churches today and you hear them singing the latest song that you hear on K love or air one or whatever and maybe it's a really great song and maybe it's a true song but maybe it's a song that's about us and not about God in true worship faith-filled worship celebratory worship is not focused on us but it's focused on God look at verse 43 Elizabeth calls Mary the mother of my what Lord the mother of my Lord that same word Lord is used 23 times in these opening chapters to refer to who God clearly to God and she says now Mary you are the mother of my Lord Elizabeth is going to use that word in verse 45 to refer clearly to God her focus is on God what about Mary's focus you can read the magnificent from beginning to end never does she sing about or dwell on the fact that she's excited to have a baby that something really great and exciting and wonderful is about to come into her life her focus from beginning to end is on God she's not focused on the blessing but she's focused on the one who gives the blessing look at verse 47 God is her savior verse 48 and 49 God is great and God is holy verse 50 he's merciful 51 2 3 he's powerful verse 54 and 55 he's faithful from beginning to end the worship in this passage is completely focused on God leads us to number three faith-filled celebratory worship is biblical in content it is biblical in content that doesn't mean you have to just sing the bible verbatim but it means that God's word is the foundation that forms the content of our worship maybe it's just me but as I read this story this week and I looked ahead and I looked at zechariah and then I looked at uh it's semi and later it struck me as odd that all of these people just burst out into song right Jesus comes into their presence and they just immediately start singing these songs and I thought to myself you know I've celebrated a lot of sports I've celebrated a lot of holidays birthdays I have never just broken into song out of nowhere maybe I'm just not musical enough I don't know if our band members go around doing this at celebrations Tyler says no he's never done that I'm never just broken out in song here's what I think is happening in Mary's life I think she's had time to ponder these things and to think about these things and it kind of reminds me of uh the newest version of charlie in the chocolate factory you have you seen that movie the one with Johnny Depp the old one with Gene Wilder I like better and the book is even better than both the movies but in the newest movie if you've seen it you know the kids come to the chocolate factory and they walk around with charlie and they see all these things and one by one they get in trouble and they sort of get shaved off the scene and taken out of the story and in the book and in the original movie every time a kid gets cut the oompa loompas come immediately onto the sing and they start singing and all the songs they sing are about these kids that just got booted out of the factory and so in the newest movie that happens they come and Augustus gets sucked up the chocolate thing and there he goes and the oompa loompas come and they sing about Augustus getting sucked up the thing and one of the kids looks at the oompa loompas and says have you been practicing that how did you know that was going to happen did you know he was going to get sucked how did you make that song up and every kid that gets hived off they say how are you singing these songs you're just making them up on the spur moment it's sort of tongue in cheek humor that this is a musical and they're singing these songs on the spur of the moment and at first glance that's what it looks like mary is doing but she's just taken a journey from her home to see Elizabeth and I looked up a bunch of different sources and I found lots of different answers this journey was anywhere from 50 to 150 miles no one knows exactly for certain where Elizabeth and Zechariah lived so she's gone a long ways and she didn't have a bus she didn't have a taxi she didn't have a car she probably walked maybe if she was fortunate enough she got to ride a donkey or a colt or something like that but more than likely she walked on this long journey to see Elizabeth and as she walked she thought she thought about all the things Gabriel had just said to her things that she believed but she was trying to wrap her mind around and she thought about the Bible the Old Testament and she thought about God's promises in Isaiah a virgin will conceive and you will call him a manual and he will be the son of God the government will be on her shoulders she's pondering all of these things she's trying to put all of these pieces together thinking about what Gabriel said thinking about what the Bible says and she comes into Elizabeth's presence and immediately she just overflows in worship listen to me the song that Mary sings has 12 different Old Testament quotations or illusions that's all she sings she's not making this song up she's just singing Bible verses that she knows from the Old Testament that she understands or being fulfilled in what God is doing in her life this worship that is filled with faith and celebrate celebratory in nature is biblical in its basis parents grandparents would you like your kids and your grandkids and your great-grandkids to grow up and be people who worship God with faith and with celebration and with joy and exuberance all of us I think would want that if you want that stop worrying about hymns or contemporary music stop worrying about drums or organs stop worrying about lights or displays or all of these other things stop worrying about whether or not they close their eyes when they sing if they raise their hands what they're seeing all of those things are fine and okay and good but they're peripheral worry about God's word teach your kids and your grandkids God's words so that when they come to crucial moments in their life their heart overflows with the truth of scripture in worship so faith filled worship celebratory worship is biblical in content number four this kind of worship is internal in nature internal in nature mary did sing a song she sang it out loud but verse 46 in verse 47 she's she's talking about her soul excuse me or her spirit magnifying God she's worshiping from her heart anybody can sing a song and it's good to sing a song and in a few minutes we're gonna sing and I hope you'll sing with us but true worship stems and it springs from the heart it's internal in nature number five faith filled celebratory worship is passionate in expression it's passionate in expression and this one probably rubs us a little bit the Latin word is magnificent that's where the title or the traditional name of mary song comes from the greek word is megaluno megaluno it means to make large to magnify to glorify to praise to extol and wrapped up in that definition is the idea of passion this is not something you do casually this is not something you do half-heartedly when mary begins her song with this word megaluno magnificent she's not saying i'm gonna sort of run through this song i've been working on she's saying i can't keep this song inside of me it is overflowing and i'm passionate about what i'm talking about i'm passionate about what i'm singing about this kind of worship is passionate and i don't want to beat a dead horse but let's just admit it we know how to be passionate when it comes to sports how many of you have watched any of the world cup there's a game on this afternoon and i'm just telling you if you turn it on you're gonna see passion i should have got a picture i didn't get a picture this week but you could get on the internet you can find it when brazil got trounced by germany seven to one you should have seen the brazilian fans in the crowd in the stands it was passion it was people who were totally crushed and devastated children women men all of the above weeping in the stands as their team got beat why because they're passionate about their team true worship is passionate those of us who recently went to kenya those of you who have been overseas have seen this we're able to worship with a group of people Kenyan people and they don't worship like we do they worship the same god we worship they sing songs that we can agree with when it comes to the lyrics and the words and we tried our best to clap along and stay in beat and chris ray wasn't very good at that but he made a good effort at it i don't know if you've ever seen the movie the jerk with steve martin or he's trying to keep rhythm with his african-american family but that's what chris ray looked like but hey we made an effort at it and what i'm telling you is these people worship with passion now time out now back up and i'll just say this i am not going to be the guy who goes on a mission trip and comes back and rebukes you for not being kenyans you're not kenyans and i'm not asking you to worship like kenyans i'm not asking you to imitate them or try to be exactly like them listen god is sovereign the bible says he puts people where he wants them on the places of this earth where he wants them to be if god wanted you to be a kenya he could have put you in kenya he put you here in the united states i'm not upholding kenyans as perfect worshipers because they are not they have sins and shortcomings just like we do but here's one thing we can learn from them in its passion enthusiasm again you may step back and say wow preacher that's just their culture that's not our culture and all i would say to you speaking to myself first and you second is on friday nights in west texas when the lights come on passion is our culture and saturday afternoon when it's time to tailgate with your favorite sports team at the stadium passion is our culture and sunday afternoon when i'm talking a little bit too long and you know the cowboys are about to come on tv and you're doing the math thinking can we can we make it to jason's and get home for kickoff i don't know if we can passion is our culture we know how to be passionate we just sometimes struggle with being passionate about the right things i'm not telling you to be wild and crazy to do jumping jacks to scream around to act like an idiot i'm just saying whatever passion looks like in your life it needs to come out in your worship faith-filled celebratory worship is passionate in expression number six faith-filled celebratory worship is regular in occurrence it's regular in occurrence it's not just something you do when you go to kenya it's not just something you do when you go to youth camp it's not just something you do during vbs but it's a part of your life luke chapter one verse six says this zechariah and elizabeth were righteous before god walking blamelessly and all the commandments and statutes of the lord this is not a one-time event where she breaks out in worship this is part of the overall pattern of her life luke chapter two verse forty one tells us that mary and joseph were faithful and consistent in going to jerusalem every year to worship with their family if they made that kind of sacrifice it wasn't just something they did once a year but it was part of their entire life it was part of the fabric of who they are the glimpses of worship you see in luke one are part of the overall movie of these people's lives they worship regularly consistently habitually lastly number seven we'll end with this faith-filled celebratory worship is humble in attitude humble in attitude last couple weeks we talked about the idea that god delights in using nobody's for his glory he delights in using nobody's for his glory understand that that is mary mary was a nobody from nowhere and she knew it she was fully aware of who she was in her insignificance and in her sinfulness she knew all of these things without question you didn't have to convince her and yet she was used by god for his glory in an amazing way i found a quote this week from john lennon who was part of the beetles and i thought it was an interesting quote he says jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary it's them twisting it that ruins it for me that's an interesting statement and the first thing i think when i hear that statement is to say that jesus christ the son of man who came to seek and save the lost and manual god with us is all right is blasphemy second thing i think is that when he says the disciples were thick and ordinary i i think duh we all are so are you john we're all thick we're all ordinary we're all dull we're all dense we're all slow to get it god delights in using people who know that they're thick and they're ordinary and they don't have anything great to bring before god the last thing ties into that and flows out of that is that god delights in using nobodies for his glory and he used these nobodies and they were nobodies they were sinners they had hang ups and shortcomings just like you and just like me god used them in an amazing way for his glory he wants to do the same with you but it requires humility humility doesn't necessarily mean you just try to make yourself feel like a worm of a of a creature humility means you understand that you're a nobody from nowhere and you're fine with that it means you understand that you are a sinner in the presence of a holy god that you don't have any good thing to bring before him nothing meritorious or or good in your life to offer him it means confessing your sin before him it means believing what jesus has done for you not trying to add to it with your own goodness but believing that the son of man really did come to seek and to save the lost and he's found you and he saved you at the cross and not only knowing who you are not only confessing your sin not only believing the truth about Jesus but true humility means that you celebrate what god has done for you in jesus christ and so that's what we're going to do this morning we wanted to read this passage we wanted to understand it and we wanted to respond in a way that would honor jesus christ and so i'm going to ask you to bow and we're going to pray together and father our prayer this morning is simple we're grateful for the bible we believe that it's true we're grateful for what you have done in sending jesus to seek and to save the lost if father we see these two ladies who believed what you have done through jesus and who celebrated what you have done through jesus if father we want to join them we want to join zechariah and the angels and simian and mary and elizabeth and father we want to come before you with hearts filled with faith we want to come before you and celebrate who you are and what you've done on our behalf we want to come humbly we want to come passionately father we want your spirit to work in us so that we can come and we can worship father be honored as we sing we pray it in the name of jesus amen