Good morning.
Merry Christmas to you all.
I hope you are all doing well
and if you are visiting our church
for the first time this morning here in our sanctuary
or if you're watching online for the first time,
we wanna say welcome.
We're so glad that you're joining us here
on Christmas morning at Hosanna.
I am Pastor Nathan and yeah,
today we are gathered together to celebrate
the birth of Jesus Christ,
the world-changing, history-changing moment
that for so many of us has changed the course of our lives,
changed the course of our families
and yesterday we had the opportunity
at our Christmas Eve service to look at the Christmas story
from the perspective of Jesus' adopted father, Joseph.
This morning we're gonna look at it
from the perspective of Mary.
And as many of you know,
the Christmas story starts about 2,000 years ago
in a little Jewish town called Nazareth.
This place, this time was not very politically correct.
And what I mean by that is at this time in that nation
and in that little town,
invoking the name of God publicly in public places,
asking for the blessing of God upon everything in life
was expected, it was just a normal part of everyday life
for pretty much everybody.
But what wasn't so common and not nearly as common
as it is today was for a teenage girl to end up pregnant
before she was married.
That was scandalous.
That was crazy.
That didn't happen.
And yet this is the predicament we find Marian
in the Christmas story.
Now it is a beautiful story,
regardless of the challenges
that we're gonna be talking about today
because it brought us our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.
Now today as believers,
we reflect on that beautiful story of Mary,
the mother of Jesus.
And as mentioned yesterday,
there are so many Christmas songs
that we sing throughout the season
that have Mary as the focus.
And these songs, they speak of her experience.
They speak of her wonder.
They speak of her blessing
and their beautiful Christmas songs to sing
as we remember this time.
And at the point in history
where Mary's story is told,
we can't forget that at that point in history,
God had been silent for 400 years.
It had been 400 years with no prophetic messages.
400 years with no miraculous occurrences.
400 years with no angelic visits of any kind,
but everything was about to change.
Everything was about to change.
And after 400 years since the last big event
of the Old Testament,
the story of Mary opens with an angel from heaven
appearing to her.
And not just any angel,
but one of the big dogs.
One of the powerful angels,
the angel Gabriel himself,
come down to a very obscure town in northern Galilee
called Nazareth to this very poor young Jewish girl
where he gave her some news.
And this news that she received
shook her up quite significantly.
It was news that would change her life forever
and the lives for millions over the course of history.
Today we're gonna look at Christmas from her perspective.
We're gonna look at the Christmas story
from the perspective of Mary
and we're gonna see her humility.
We're gonna see her spirituality
and we're gonna see her necessity.
All of it to encourage us today
that our greatest needs are met.
Our greatest needs are always met
by the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ.
God come in the flesh.
A baby born into this world to live a life,
a perfect life, ultimately,
to be the atoning sacrifice freely given for us all
granting salvation to all who would call
upon the name of Jesus Christ.
But before we get into the story this morning,
we're gonna spend some time celebrating God in worship
and praising his name because he is worth it.
Of all days today, we wanna say,
God you are almighty, you are so great
and we are so grateful that you came to this earth,
that you died for us, that you are our salvation,
that you are the greatest gift we could ever receive, amen?
Let's pray.
Father God, we love you so much.
And we're so grateful God
that you came to this earth 2,000 years ago.
Lord, there are so many details
to the story of your birth, God,
that we could spend weeks and weeks and weeks
going through all of it.
But today, Lord, we wanna start just by praising you,
celebrating you, receiving that gift you've offered to us.
Lord, so many of us have come to that point in our lives
where we received the free gift of salvation.
God, through our faith in you, we have been saved,
eternally saved and we're so grateful God.
And Lord, today as we look at the story of your mom,
your mom here on earth, Lord,
and look at what she went through leading up to this moment,
this miraculous moment of giving birth to the Messiah.
God, that we would be encouraged by her humility
and encouraged by her spirituality,
encouraged by her recognition of her need,
a need that only you could fulfill
and that you fulfilled for so many of us
and that you continue to fulfill
for all who would call upon your name.
We love you so much.
We say happy birthday.
We say Merry Christmas.
We worship you now, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Well, as I mentioned in our intro this morning,
we're gonna be looking at Mary's perspective
of the Christmas story.
And every year she comes up in so many different ways
as the Christmas season is coming by
and there are many who might go, who was Mary?
What was her background?
What was her story?
And truth be told, we don't know a whole lot about Mary,
but we do have a few pieces from scripture
that we can put together.
And so if you will join me in Luke chapter one,
we're gonna start in verse 26 this morning.
It says there, in the sixth month,
the angel Gabriel was sent by God
to a town in Galilee called Nazareth
to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph
of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.
Now, Mary was a very young, very poor teenage girl.
Now, if you're a teenager,
I hope me calling you young doesn't offend you, okay?
But from my perspective, teenagers are young, all right?
Now, we know that Mary was young and poor
because right in this verse,
we get a couple details that tell us that.
One, it tells us that she was from a town in Galilee
called Nazareth.
Well, we know from archeology and studies of that nature
that Nazareth was a very poor working class town,
a very blue collar type place
where people weren't very wealthy.
It was considered a backwater town of its day,
and so people who lived there were very poor.
We also can surmise and figure out that she was a teenager
because it tells us that she's engaged.
Now, engaged is a word we use today,
but in the day, it was called betrothal.
It was this official custom, this contract
that was usually set up by parents of children,
could be as young as 12, as old as 17,
where they would be committed or betrothed
to marry another individual,
and it was this formal process they would go through.
But betrothal typically happened
while the kids were teenagers,
and so that's why we surmise and understand
that Mary was a teenager.
We're also gonna see in the story of Mary
that she was a very spiritual person.
She was a very on fire for God young person,
and that is a wonderful thing to see.
You see, God often uses the young
to do amazing things in our world,
to accomplish mighty things in our world.
If you remember, Paul said to Timothy,
let no one despise your youth.
You know, don't let anybody,
if you're a young person hearing this message today,
don't let anybody despise or dismiss
what God can do through you because of your youth.
God can use you to do amazing things,
mighty things, world-changing things.
And so commit to God and know him
that God would use you to change lives,
to change history even.
If you think about the disciples,
the 12 disciples that Jesus picked,
they were all young fishermen whose lives were changed
and then went on to change the world because of Jesus.
We also know that Mary was from the tribe of Judah,
a descendant of King David,
and we get this from genealogies.
In the gospels, we have Matthew has a genealogy
in Matthew chapter one, and then we have a genealogy
in Luke's writing in chapter three.
Now, I don't have time to get into all the details,
but the genealogy in Luke chapter three
is understood by most scholars and commentators
to be tracing Mary's bloodline.
It's the genealogy of Jesus through his mother, his mom.
So it's a bloodline genealogy
tracing Jesus's line back to King David.
Whereas the genealogy we have in Matthew
is his adopted father's lineage back to King David,
but that's Jesus's legal lineage
through his adopted father.
And so through those two genealogies,
we understand that both of his parents
were from the tribe of Judah.
And what that just tells us is that Jesus Christ
was the fulfillment of so many messianic prophecies
regarding who he was gonna be,
regarding that he was gonna be an offspring
and a descendant of King David
and the one worthy to sit on the throne of David.
But it's an interesting detail
because it's not just showing us
that he is a biological descendant,
a blood descendant of David,
he's also the legal descendant of David
and the only one who can inherit the throne.
We also know that Mary had at least one sister
in John chapter 19 verse 25.
It tells us this.
It tells us that Mary's sister was also named Mary.
So you had Mary Mary in that family.
And Mary was just a common name of the time,
a very common name of the time.
We also know that Mary, the mother of Jesus,
was also related to the priesthood
that existed in Jerusalem at that time
through her cousin Elizabeth.
Her cousin Elizabeth was married to a man named Zacharias
and he was a priest serving in the temple
and so she had a connection to the priesthood there.
But the significant detail,
the important detail that the gospels give us about Mary,
about Mary's story,
and it's what sets up all the drama of Christmas for Mary
was the fact that she was engaged.
That is the detail that the accounts focus on
that she was engaged to this man named Joseph.
Now we spoke about Joseph at length yesterday
and if you didn't get to hear that message,
it's on YouTube and so feel free to go back and watch it.
But if we know little about Mary,
we know even less about the personal
and practical details of Joseph, Jesus' adopted father.
In fact, we only have one word in the entire New Testament
that describes who Joseph was
or what he did.
And that word is found in two places
in Mark chapter six verse three
and Matthew chapter 13 verse 35
where he is called a carpenter.
That's all we know about Joseph.
As far as practical details, he was a carpenter.
Now that word carpenter there,
it's a Greek word that simply means builder, right?
It was a word incidentally often used for stone masons
and so even though it's rendered carpenter,
it's very possible that Joseph wasn't just a woodworker
but he was also a stone mason working with stone and wood
because it was kind of a broad word there.
But the picture that we have of Mary and Joseph here
is that Jesus' earthly parents were both young,
hardworking individuals living poor
in this town of Nazareth.
But they were happily engaged.
That's the detail.
They were happily engaged.
Now, as I mentioned, that word engaged
is the concept of being betrothed, right?
Being betrothed in those days was a formal
contractual arrangement by parents.
I mean, it was very official, very business, right?
It was so formal that if you were betrothed to someone,
you were engaged.
You hadn't even been married yet in the marriage ceremony
but it was such a formal thing
that if you wanted to break the engagement,
you had to go through a formal divorce ceremony
because in those times, being betrothed
was just as relevant, or just as enforceable as being married.
It carried the same weight as being married
is what I'm trying to say.
So just because you were only engaged,
you were still a committed married person.
So it was a big, big deal in those days.
And typically an engagement period
would last around 12 months,
but there were cases where a couple
was inappropriately young for marriage
and so the betrothal period could last longer.
But it was typically a 12 month period
where the couple would spend time
getting to know each other,
where the couple who were both intended
and expected to be virgins
were saving themselves for one another
so that during the wedding ceremony at the tail end
when they went into the wedding chamber
and consummated the marriage,
it was just this beautiful, wonderful picture
of the intimacy that is intended to be
between a husband and a wife.
And so during this engagement period,
the couple would talk and get to know each other
and get their affairs in order
and they would just get ready for this marriage,
this lifetime commitment that they were gonna have.
But they lived apart during this engagement time
and they had absolutely zero physical contact of any kind.
Why?
Because sexual intimacy was reserved
for the sanctity of marriage.
And it is still reserved for the sanctity of marriage
in God's eyes despite what our culture says.
So after the engagement time was up,
there would be a wedding ceremony which could last days
and dads who have daughters,
you might be happy you don't live in those times
because it was a party that could last up to a week
and you had to pay for it.
And the entire community was invited.
So good thing we don't have to do that today, right?
But this ceremony which could last days and days and days
would finally culminate with the couple
retiring into the wedding chamber
and then the union would be consummated.
But during this time, during this engagement,
during this patrol of time, the couples were watched.
They were watched by their family,
they were watched by the community,
they were watched to see if they're maintaining their purity,
their commitment to one another and their commitment to God.
So it was during this time of them being watched,
verse 28, Luke one says,
and the angel came to Mary and said,
"'Greetings, favored woman.
"'The Lord is with you.'
"'But she was deeply troubled by this statement,
"'wondering what kind of greeting this could be.
"'Remember, God had been silent for 400 years at this point.
"'No prophecies, no words, no angel sightings of any kind,
"'and yet, poof, here's an angel appearing to Mary.'"
Appearing to this poor, young, insignificant girl
in a backwater, insignificant town of Nazareth,
appearing to her.
And so it says that she was deeply troubled.
In modern translation, she's freaked out.
She's freaked out by this.
Not only at seeing an angel,
which I think all of us would be deeply troubled
if an angel appeared to us, right?
Oh, wow.
But then what does he say to her?
"'Greetings, favored woman.
"'The Lord was with you.'"
But it says she was wondering what kind of greeting
this could be. Was this a good thing?
Or was this a bad thing?
Right, you read through the Old Testament,
and God appears both ways, doesn't he?
Sometimes he would appear to his enemies,
and that was not a good thing.
And then sometimes he would appear to his people,
and it was a good thing.
And sometimes he appeared to his people,
and it was a bad thing because of what they were doing.
So she was concerned.
We hadn't heard anything from God for 400 years.
"'And yet, now an angel is standing before me,
"'greeting me in the name of the Lord.'"
Verse 30, it says,
"'The angel then told her,
"'Do not be afraid, Mary,
"'for you have found favor with God.
"'Now listen, you will conceive and give birth to a son,
"'and you will name him Jesus.'"
That word Jesus is the word Yeshua in Hebrew.
It's a name that means the Lord is salvation.
So the angel's telling her,
look, you're gonna get pregnant,
you're gonna give birth to a baby,
and you're gonna name him the Lord is salvation.
Verse 32, "'He will be great,
"'and will be called the Son of the Most High,
"'and the Lord God will give him
"'the throne of his father, David.
"'He will reign over the house of Jacob forever,
"'and his kingdom will have no end.'
"'And Mary asked the angel,
"'How can this be,
"'since I have not had sexual relations with a man?'
Now, I think that is the most obvious
and understandable question
that may have ever been asked in the history of questions.
You're telling me I'm gonna have to ask you
if you're telling me I'm gonna get pregnant.
I haven't been with a man, I'm a virgin.
In fact, I'm engaged to be married.
I'm saving myself from my husband.
Everybody's watching us.
The community's watching us.
My parents are watching us.
My friends, everybody's.
What are you talking about?
How can this be?
And she understands biology,
which I know is a problem in today's scholastic environment,
but she understands biology.
She understands how pregnancy occurs,
and so she's like, how is this gonna be?
The angel replied to her in verse 35,
"'The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
"'and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
"'Therefore, the Holy One to be born
"'will be called the Son of God.'"
What an incredible moment for this young woman.
This young teenage girl from Nazareth
being told, and she understood the terminology there.
You're gonna give birth to the Messiah.
You're gonna give birth to the Holy One
that you and your people have been waiting for
for generations.
You are gonna give birth to the one
that has been prophesied and written about
and spoken about.
You're the one.
What an amazing opportunity.
Every Jewish girl of the time
dreamed of growing up
and becoming the mother of the Messiah.
It was the highest honor
that a young Jewish girl could expect
to be the one who gave birth to the Messiah.
They knew that's how it was gonna happen
because that's what the prophecy said.
It was the hope of every single person
that was a Jew that one day this Messiah would come.
Every Jewish girl as they approached the age of betrothal
which was in their teenage years
and they approached that phase of life
where marriage was gonna happen,
they were all dreaming,
maybe I will be the one to give birth to the Messiah.
Then one day this angel shows up,
hey Mary, guess what?
Ding, ding, ding, you win.
You're gonna be the one.
Out of all the Jewish girls in history,
out of all the Jewish girls in history,
out of all the women on the earth,
you have been chosen.
You have been singled out to bring forth the Son of God.
Wow, what a big deal, right?
What an amazing thing to be told.
But as exciting as that was,
it created a very difficult scenario for her
as her question indicated.
How am I gonna become pregnant?
I've not been with a man.
You see, she was engaged
and we talked a little bit about this yesterday
but according to Deuteronomy chapter 22,
the law said that if a young woman became pregnant
before marriage, it was the death penalty.
She would be stoned.
And that's not stoned like we think of today, okay?
That's big rocks thrown at her until she's dead.
That was the penalty for getting pregnant before marriage.
Why?
Well, part of it was because sexual intimacy was sacred,
sacred and reserved for the marriage bed.
And so for her, now it's a difficult situation.
You know, when others find out that I'm pregnant,
it's gonna be scandal.
Her life is gonna be ruined.
Everybody's gonna be like,
you guys had sex before marriage.
You've dishonored your family.
You've dishonored God.
You've dishonored the community.
They're gonna call her all kinds of things.
You can imagine what words they would use.
But they hadn't had sex before marriage.
She was pure.
She had been saving herself as she was supposed to.
But as others were gonna accuse her of doing that,
Joseph was likely gonna say as much defending himself.
We didn't do anything.
And so thus, the accusations were gonna go from
sex outside of marriage to you're a cheater.
You cheated.
You slept with someone who wasn't your husband.
You cheated on her husband.
Wow, that was gonna be a tough situation for her.
And then of course, in Matthew chapter one,
it tells us that when Joseph did indeed find out,
he was shocked.
He was shocked.
How could this be?
How could my virgin bride-to-be be pregnant?
What does it mean?
But as we looked at, he loved her.
He loved her very much.
He didn't want her to face the death penalty,
and so he chose not to publicly shame her.
He didn't want to privately divorce her because well,
I can't really believe that you're miraculously pregnant
by God, come on, okay, really.
So I'm gonna privately divorce you.
We're just gonna separate.
Let's go our different ways, and I will be fine.
But he came to that after considering all his options.
I believe part of that was trying to protect
both of their reputations,
because his reputation was gonna be ruined by this.
But I believe because he loved her,
he didn't want her reputation to be completely,
radically wrecked.
And so, private divorce.
But before Joseph even knew,
and we touched on this yesterday,
Mary, knowing she had a very difficult situation before her,
she needed advice.
She needed encouragement.
She needed support.
And so she ran to the one person
who would understand this unexplainable miracle,
the miracle of a young virgin teenage girl
becoming pregnant by the power of God.
And so it tells us in verse 36,
the angel says, consider your relative Elizabeth.
Even she has conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her
who was called childless.
For nothing will be impossible with God.
Then I'm skipping 38 right now.
I'll come back to it.
But then in verse 39, it says,
in those days, Mary set out and hurried to a town
in the hill country of Judah,
where she entered Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth.
Who would believe her?
Who would believe her story?
The angel Gabriel visited me.
Come on, Mary.
You've been drinking a little too much.
What's going on?
Partying a little too hard?
No, really, the angel Gabriel visited me.
Who would believe her,
but the only other woman at this time
who had also been visited by the angel Gabriel,
who was also told, you're gonna have a miracle baby?
Who would believe her when she said,
I'm gonna give birth to the Messiah,
but the woman who was told,
you're gonna give birth to the Messiah's herald?
It was Elizabeth, the one who gave birth to John the Baptist.
So Mary knew, and she was encouraged by Gabriel,
that if anybody would understand and believe this miracle,
it would be her cousin Elizabeth.
And so she goes to visit Elizabeth,
but before she does that, before she goes there to say,
okay, how do I deal with the implications?
How do I deal with the outcome?
How do I deal with the gossip and the slander and the rum,
how do I deal with all of that?
Verse 38 tells us Mary's heart.
It tells us Mary's humility.
Look at what she says there.
See, I am the Lord's servant.
May it happen to me as you have said,
and then the angel left her.
How amazing is that?
Despite everything, she submits herself completely
in humility to the will and word of God for her life.
You see, part of the Christmas story
is understanding what Jesus can do, what Jesus does do.
See, how many of us facing a situation like this,
where the impossible is being told to us,
and then we're called to embrace that impossible thing,
knowing that embracing that possible thing
is gonna ruin our reputation and ruin our life
from the worldly perspective.
Ladies, what if you were in this position,
facing a scenario like that,
in a culture that said if you get pregnant
before you're married, we're gonna kill you.
It's the death penalty.
It's such a horrendous thing.
And yet, here's an angel of God saying,
hey, guess what, yeah, all that's gonna happen.
Not the death part, but you are gonna get pregnant.
And you knew all that was gonna come with that.
What would we say?
What would you say?
I think most of us would, at least on our best day,
negotiate.
Well, okay, God, but how about,
can I adopt instead?
Do I have to go through the pregnancy, right?
We would negotiate.
At our worst, we flat out say, no, I'm not gonna do that.
The cost to me is too great.
The difficulty is me too great.
So God, I'm not gonna obey you.
But she's told, hey, you're pregnant.
You've never been with a man.
I know it, you know it.
But I know you can figure this out.
You're not gonna be able to hide it.
Biologically, your belly grows as the baby grows.
But you're gonna be able to handle it.
And she says, yes.
May it happen to me as you have said,
knowing that for the rest of her life,
she was gonna live with a stigma.
For the rest of her life,
she was gonna live with a reputation.
If you remember in the gospels,
it tells us that Jesus, even in his adult life,
was still being accused as people said,
you're the kid born of fornication.
I'm gonna translate that into modern day terms.
Your mom's a whore.
That's what Jesus had to deal with his whole life.
That's what Mary had to deal with her whole life.
And yet, she said, God, if you're calling me to this,
I'll do it.
If you're calling me to give birth to the Messiah,
I'll do it.
God, if you wanna lay this blessing in my life
that's gonna come with difficulty, I will do it.
Why?
Because you're God.
You're God and obeying you is what we're called to do.
What an amazing example of humble obedience
and trust and faith we have in Mary's Christmas story.
And again, considering that every Jewish girl
was looking forward to this moment,
like every girl wanted to be the one
to give birth to the Messiah.
Considering that, Mary could have gotten
pretty prideful over this, couldn't she?
Imagine.
She's like, wait, I'm giving birth to the Messiah?
I must be pretty special.
I mean, gosh, there's something in me
that caused God to pick me over every other girl.
You all need to bow down to me
because I am Mary, the mother of God.
I am superior to everyone, right?
She could have gone there in her head,
but that's not what happened.
Mary humbly surrenders, humbly submits.
She resolves, she accepts.
She lays down her life before God
and then she goes on to pray this,
this beautiful, wonderful prayer of praise.
It's a section of scripture that's called The Magnificent
because of how she opens this prayer
and it starts in verse 36.
And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my savior
because he has looked on me with favor
on the humble condition of his servant.
So she recognizes her condition.
She recognizes that out of all the possible choices,
she's probably in the lowest part of the choices.
In her own mind, from her perspective,
there's probably many other young women
who were better choices to birth the Messiah.
She's saying, I'm a nobody from nowhere
and yet God called me of all people.
Do you all realize that every single one of us in this room,
every single one of us watching,
we're all nobodies from nowhere and God chooses us.
God has chosen us to be his dwelling place
for his Holy Spirit to live.
God has chosen us to do his work in the world.
He has chosen us to shine his light.
He has chosen us.
If we're honest, we're all going,
are you sure about that, Lord?
Because I know me.
I know it goes through my head.
I know the doubts I have.
I know the times where God, I've gotten mad at you
and shook my fist and said, I don't like you anymore.
Lord, I've had times where I even said, I hate you.
And yet you still choose me?
Yeah, he does.
That's how great the gift is.
He chooses everyone and when we come to the place of saying,
God, I receive that gift, I'm gonna unwrap that gift,
I'm gonna apply that gift, man, he steps into our lives,
the filth of our lives and he does mighty things.
And it's miraculous, it's wondrous that he uses us,
but he does.
Because just like the clay in the potter's hands,
God is the one who makes something wonderful
and miraculous out of our lives.
He is the one that makes something beautiful
out of our lives.
We just have to remember to trust him
and to follow his will and to walk in obedience
and to let him do what he is doing.
But she says, my soul magnifies the Lord.
She goes on, surely from now on,
all generations will call me blessed
because the mighty one has done great things for me
and his name is holy.
Now you might think, oh, see right there,
she's getting prideful.
Well, guess what, everybody in every generation
is gonna call me blessed, but listen to her words.
Listen to who she has given the glory to.
The mighty one has done great things for me
and his name is holy.
His mercy is from generation to generation
on those who fear him.
He has done a mighty deed with his arm.
He has scattered the proud
because of the thoughts of their hearts.
He has toppled the mighty from their thorns
and exalted the lowly.
She gets it.
She says, he's done it, he's done it,
he's done it, he's done it.
What's my part in the whole process?
I'm just the lowly that he's using.
She again recognizes her own circumstance.
She has humility, the humility she has
in the face of being the one to birth the Messiah.
She's hitting on a very important biblical principle,
incidentally, and that principle is this,
that God exalts the lowly and lowers the prideful.
He exalts the lowly but lowers the prideful.
If you think highly of yourself,
God has a way of humbling you.
And in most cases, I don't think you're gonna like it.
But conversely, if you were lowly,
if you were humble before God,
he has a way of raising you up.
God himself, God Almighty examples this
in the birth of Christ and the life he lived, right?
God Almighty came and was born in lowly circumstances.
He set aside his divinity.
He didn't cease to be God.
He just simply didn't tap into what he could have.
He lived a lowly life, being the creator of everything.
But through that humility, he was highly exalted.
We know that from Philippians chapter two, verse five.
It says this, adopt the same attitude
as that of Christ Jesus, who existing in the form of God
did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.
Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form
of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even to the death on the cross.
For this reason, God highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow
in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.
You see, in the mystery of the Godhead, the Trinity,
the Father exalted the Son because the Son humbled himself
by being obedient to the Father and becoming man
and living as a man and doing the Father's will.
He humbled himself.
In the picture of our perspective,
the Son could have been like, Dad, I'm God.
I'm not gonna go be a man.
They're filthy animals.
They got problems.
Have you seen what they do to each other?
But no, he said, I'll go do it.
Right, we even see that struggle in the garden.
You remember Jesus in the garden?
Father, please take this cup from me.
There's any other way.
Like, I get the plan, Dad.
I understand the plan, but if there's any other way,
let's vote for that.
But what did he say at the end of that?
Nonetheless, not my will, but your will be done.
That's humility.
That's the humility we saw in Jesus.
It's the humility we see in Mary.
It's the humility we saw in Joseph.
To step into a situation that would bring great discomfort,
great difficulty, but God, if this is what you're calling me
to do, I will be obedient.
And Mary recognizes that it's God giving her this blessing
through his mercy.
It's God doing this work.
It's not because of her.
It's not because she earned it.
It's not because she's special.
She says that right there.
His mercy is from generation to generation.
That God's choosing me is because God chose to choose me.
And the mystery of why is in God's domain.
And some of us, we wrestle with that.
Oh, I'm so bad.
God can't choose me.
Yes, he can.
I'm so horrible, God will never use me.
Yes, he will if you submit yourself to him.
I've done A, B, C, there's no way.
God already knows and he died for it
before you were even born.
And he says if you trust me, if you put your faith in me,
you'll be forgiven.
Your life will be changed.
I'll give you a new heart.
My spirit, I will live within you.
And then, wow, look what we're gonna do.
But it's receiving that gift.
It's humbling ourself.
Verse 49, we see that Mary recognizes and praises God
for who he is.
She calls him the mighty one and the holy one.
You know, again, that just ties into that saying.
The bigger your concept of God,
the smaller your problems are gonna seem
before him and before you.
But again, conversely, if you're calling him
the mighty one, conversely, if your concept of God is small,
wow, your problems are gonna seem mighty.
He is the mighty one, not your problems.
He is the mighty one that can do everything and anything.
He can accomplish the impossible, Gabriel told Mary.
And here is a girl who was just told,
you're gonna get pregnant.
There's gonna be a baby growing in your womb,
despite it being impossible.
But what does he say?
God, nothing is impossible with God.
And so Mary says, okay, I believe that.
I will submit to that despite all the ramifications.
And as that baby grew in her womb,
I believe Mary just believed more and more
the mightiness of God.
That as she stepped in faith to believe God,
her faith that God is mighty just kept growing
and kept growing.
Verse 53, she says, he has satisfied the hunger
with good things, the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel remembering his mercy
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he spoke to our ancestors.
So here in this praise that she's erupting
and giving to God and just overwhelmed
with the glory of God's decision to choose her of all people.
She's now reflecting in God's provision to the lonely.
She's like, I'm lonely, lowly, I'm a nobody.
But God takes care of the nobodies.
God provides for the humble.
That's what the word tells us.
To those that believe in God, God takes care of them.
She's reflecting on God's faithfulness,
remembering the promises he's made to Abraham
and the promises to her nation and her people.
And the greatest promise that they were all
looking forward to was the coming of the Messiah.
And she's like, it's happening, it's real.
Now what's interesting here is in this prayer,
this magnificent that we're looking at,
she quotes the Old Testament like 15 different times.
And we don't have time to go through
every single one of them, but 15 different times
she directly quotes the Old Testament
as she's praying this spontaneous prayer
that is just flowing out of her spontaneously.
What does that tell us about Mary?
She knew the word of God.
She was well acquainted with the word of God.
It was a part of her that it's now flowing out
of her spontaneously as she's praising God.
And it really teaches us that a character of humility
is a fruit of knowing God's word.
The more you know God's word, I believe more
the fruit of humbleness grows within you
and expresses itself through your life.
So Jesus, the truth is, Jesus, the word,
the word of God, the word that Mary knows well,
that her husband Joseph knew well,
the word of God came that we would know him.
It's a part of the gift that he is to us.
That is why God came and was born in the flesh.
That you would know him.
That he would be a part of your life.
That he would be a part of my life.
That he would be a part of our life together.
That he would flow out from us.
He wants us to know him.
That was the point of this miracle.
He wants us to know him.
And then as an integral part of our life,
he would just flow out constantly.
That we would be people that can just bust out
in spontaneous praise and the word of God
is just flowing off of our lips.
Why?
Because we're well acquainted with it.
We know his word, we know him.
That when we find ourselves in situations
and we're like, well how do I react?
We're so well acquainted with the character of our creator
that we know exactly how we're supposed to react.
We know how we're supposed to help.
We know how we're supposed to serve
because we know our shepherd.
We know the greatest servant of all.
Jesus is the one that said the mouth speaks
from the overflow of the heart.
Does the truth of Jesus, the hope of Jesus,
the promise of Jesus, does it just flow from your mouth?
If it doesn't, don't be ashamed.
God's just saying, hey, nudge nudge.
Just get in my word more.
That it would be an integral part of your life.
Paul said, let the word of Christ dwell richly among you.
Why?
That your character would be one of humility,
ready to receive what God would have for you
and I believe that was why Mary was chosen by God.
She had a character of humility already.
God knew that he could give this blessing to her
and she wouldn't go create a social media page saying,
praise me, the mother of God, buy my merch.
But instead, she was just humbly like God.
I'm just so blessed that you would choose me.
Now all of this begins from a place of understanding
our great need for him.
In verse 46, Mary opened this thing where she says,
my soul magnifies the Lord.
And then she said, my spirit rejoices in God, my savior.
Who needs a savior?
A person in need of saving.
That's who needs a savior and Mary,
by her own admission right here,
we see in her own admission, I need saving.
I need salvation.
She opens this praise by saying, I need salvation.
She was overwhelmed that a holy, righteous,
transcendent God would condescend to her
poor, teenage, engaged woman from Nazareth.
That God would come into her life to bless her,
to love her, to show her favor,
all in contrast to her own recognized sinfulness.
I believe Mary was very aware of her own sinfulness,
thus, or else she would not have said, God is my savior.
I magnify him.
My spirit rejoices in him, my savior.
But in that, she's also recognizing
not just her own sinfulness, but God's innate holiness,
God's perfection, and so must we all.
We all have to be people that recognize
God's innate holiness.
And in recognizing God's innate holiness,
we also then recognize our own lack of holiness.
We recognize that God condescends to us in the same love,
to give us the same blessings and the same favor,
and that is Christmas.
That God lowered himself to the form of a man,
to live as a man, that he would identify with us
in every way, that he would then be the atoning sacrifice
on the cross for all of our sins,
the sins we can't stop doing,
the sins we can do nothing about,
that we would have the opportunity
to have a restored relationship with our creator.
What a wonderful gift that is.
The Bible tells us blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And in the presence of the perfect one,
she says, whatever you want, Lord, let it be done.
I'll lay down my life for you, I'll give my life to you.
I am lowly, yet I have received your mercy.
It is you who has blessed,
it is you who has done great things for me.
God, I am yours.
Now, Christmas is about Jesus.
Right, I know we've spent a lot of time looking at Mary,
yesterday we spent a lot of time looking at Joseph.
And the point is, is what this man,
who was God, Jesus, did in their lives,
even before he was born.
The effect he's having on their life.
Highlighting the character traits that were in them,
that are good character traits that God wants in his people.
Highlighting the response that they made to this news
that was really gonna wreck their lives in a lot of ways.
And that they said, no, no, no, we believe in God,
we trust God, we follow God.
And so despite what God is calling us to do
and putting before us, we're gonna step into it.
Mary may have got there a little quicker than Joseph,
that's okay.
Some people always say, well, the guys are a little,
okay, whatever.
But every person that gets there and gets it,
are the ones that God is gonna pour out his blessing upon.
And so Christmas, it's about Jesus.
It's about God coming to the flesh
that we might know him personally.
Knowing that he fully identifies with us
in our struggles and our sin.
But also knowing that our full reconciliation
to our creator comes ultimately
and came ultimately with his death on the cross.
You see, a lot of people wanna stop at the birth of Jesus,
oh, baby Jesus, how fun.
But they don't wanna carry the story
all the way through to Easter.
They don't wanna carry the reality all the way through
of why was this cute little baby born?
So that he could die for you.
So that he could be the atoning sacrifice for your sin.
Being the only perfect and spotless
and blameless atoning sacrifice.
The only possible sacrifice
that would fully satisfy the justice of God.
That is who Jesus is.
The arrival of that Jesus is what we celebrate in Christmas.
You know, there's a pretty famous song,
sung during Christmas season,
and I mentioned it yesterday.
It's a song that says, it's entitled Mary, Did You Know?
Right?
And the first stanza of the song says,
Mary, did you know that your baby boy
would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy
will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
The child that you've delivered will soon deliver you.
Did she know?
I think she did.
I'm pretty sure she did.
The question for us today is, do you know?
Do you know that that baby boy came to save you?
Do you know that he came to set you free from sin?
Do you recognize that you need a savior
because you have sinned against a holy God?
I believe Mary knew that.
And if it was true for Mary,
my goodness, it's true for every single one of us.
That we need a savior.
And Christmas is about that savior being born.
But because we need to know about Jesus,
or because what we need to know about Jesus
in the Christmas story wraps around that whole concept
that it wasn't just about gifts, it was about salvation.
What we need to know about Jesus during Christmas
and every day is that he is so much more
than just a baby in the manger.
That he is God Almighty, the savior of our souls.
["The Christmas Story"]
It was that silent night
when the stars turned their gaze to marvel at the earth.
When the heavens gathered breathless
around the lowly stable.
["The Christmas Story"]
When a young mother wept tears of worship,
falling on the baby in her arms.
And the song of the earth arose in Bethlehem,
soft as the tender beating of his heart.
And all was calm, all was bright.
Yet could this be the same God of Abraham,
the conqueror of Israel, this baby, this fragile life?
Is this child the one who burned his name in rapture
across the gasping skies?
Whose voice spoke the oceans into crashing rhythms?
Who crafted the mountains into guardians of the firmament?
Whose hand ignited the thirst of the deserts
and a warring surge of the elemental hosts?
Who breathed life from dust,
broke the oppressor's rule,
scattered the chains of his people like sand,
and led them through the wilderness
with the pillar of flame?
Is this child the one whose presence
billowed thunderous on Sinai's peak?
Who surrounded Job with a roaring wind,
stood defiant in the raging furnace,
wrote judgment against tyrants,
and blazed on the lips of the prophets,
scorching history's pages with the fury of his might?
Could this be the same God who chose to come
as the vulnerable king,
setting his throne on straw and manger,
drawing forth the tears of shepherds,
receiving the gifts of wandering travelers,
his fame unknown in this world?
He is Jesus,
the one who thunders through the heavens,
yet whispers to our hearts,
who reigns victorious,
yet bows to serve the broken.
He is God in the fury,
God in the silence.
He holds this mystery balanced in his hands,
holds our questions till they lose their need,
until all we see is him.
We need a savior,
and we need his mercy,
and we need his grace,
and he is Jesus, God Almighty.
And today we celebrate the fulfillment of that promise
that was given to Mary,
the free gift given of God for us.
Today we celebrate the truth told by the angel
to the shepherds in Luke chapter two,
where it said, today in the city of David,
a savior was born for you who is the Messiah, the Lord.
This will be a sign for you.
You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth
and lying in a manger.
And with that, Mary's first Christmas
became the fulfillment of the hope of all mankind
for all time.
And he could be your hope.
He could be your savior.
He could be your grace, your mercy.
And if you don't know Jesus Christ
as your personal Lord and savior today,
all you have to do is receive the free gift
that is freely given.
He already died on the cross.
He already lived that life 2,000 years ago.
Today he sits at the right hand of the Father
and says, believe in me.
Receive the salvation that I came to give to you.
And all you have to do is say, Jesus, I receive that.
I believe in who you are.
I know I've sinned against you.
Please forgive me.
Come into my life as you came into Mary's life.
Come into my life as you came into Joseph's life.
Come into my life as you entered into this world
to do a mighty work of healing and salvation.
And he will do that, the Bible promises.
All who call upon the name of Jesus will be saved.
I pray you receive that gift today.
And in that you have the most merry of Christmases
that you've ever had.
Let's pray.
Father, we love you so much.
God, we know it takes a humility to come before you
and to say, you are God.
That although you entered this world
in the most helpless of ways,
being born of the Virgin Mary,
God born of a young teenage girl
who had not been with a man.
And yet Lord, as the power of God overshadowed her,
she found herself in a place
where she was born of a child.
And then Lord, she was born into this world,
you were born into this world
in a manger in a feeding trough.
Lord, that you were raised in very poor conditions
but with such great love from your parents.
That you grew in stature as a man,
you learned as a man.
And then God one day,
as you entered into your ministry,
you walked this earth healing,
bringing hope, preaching salvation.
And then Lord, you died on the cross.
A horrible and gruesome death, God.
But you did it willingly.
Lord, you did it with joy set before you, God.
That we would be saved.
Lord, what a gift that is
and it's a gift we could never ever possibly earn.
But it is a gift you give us simply through faith.
And so Lord, I pray God that as we learn
from the example of your mother,
that we see her humble state.
We see that she was a woman who knew you.
Knew your word.
But most importantly,
she was a woman who recognized her need for a savior.
That God, we would learn from that example this Christmas.
And that we would recognize our own lowliness
and our own humility.
And our own need for you, God.
So that we wouldn't push you aside this Christmas
for decades,
for decades, this Christmas for decorations
and gifts and celebrations, Lord.
All those are great things.
But we would keep you at the center.
That baby who was wrapped tightly in a cloth,
lying in a manger.
Who grew as a man.
Who died for us as the atoning sacrifice.
Thank you so much, Lord.
We love you.
And we praise your holy name, God.
Be glorified in our lives.
Be glorified in our church.
Be glorified in our world, God.
And we pray for all those who don't yet know you.
That they would come to know you.
And experience the hope and the mercy and the grace
and the blessing that is in you, God.
Thank you for loving us so much that you came to this earth.
Thank you for loving us so much that you died for us.
We love you.
Happy birthday, Lord.
Merry Christmas.
It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
God bless you guys.