Haste, Haste to Bring Him Laud
Download MP3This is from Luke 146 through 56. And Mary said, 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.
Speaker 1:He has scattered the proud in 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, and the rich 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 3 months and returned to her home.
Speaker 1:This is the word of the lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Thanks be to God. There's a common greeting, in the church that begins, the Lord be with you. And then there's the response, and also with you. And we see that, actually in scripture all the way back in Ruth, where Boaz says to the field workers, The Lord be with you. And they call back, and also with you.
Jeffrey Heine:And I think that it's especially important at a time where we are turning to God's word, and we want to hear from him, and we want to know him, that we participate in such a greeting as that. So I'm going to say the Lord be with you, and then you say back to me, and also with you. And and what we mean by that is that I need the Lord to be able to declare the truth of God to you, and you need the Lord in hearing from him. Because you don't need to just hear from me as Joel mentions every week. You don't just need to hear from the person standing up here talking.
Jeffrey Heine:We all need to hear from the Lord himself. So the Lord be with you. And also with you. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your word.
Jeffrey Heine:And we ask that now you would teach us from it. This is a new and new triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit that you would be present in this place and instructing us, guiding us to truth, and that you would slow our hearts and minds to listen, that you would engage our minds to think, and that we would go from this place. Ready to tell the gospel that we will declare one to another tonight. So teach us, Lord, please. And not just for our own sake, before the sake of this world.
Jeffrey Heine:The nations would proclaim the name of Christ and magnify him. We pray these things in his name. Amen. It is this week. And this week we're actually going to begin our study, where Joel left off last week, like where he ended is where we're going to begin and then where we end tonight is going to be where he began last week.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't think about that too much because you will get a headache. But, that's kinda how we're gonna, Tarantino this. So, yeah. So tonight we're getting into kind of a bit of a tricky subject here. Mary, the blessed virgin Mary, the mother of Christ, the mother of God.
Jeffrey Heine:That name gets her into some trouble sometimes. And and the reason that it's kind of a tricky subject is because as as protestants as, you know, it's, what do we do with Mary? You know, we we we'll sing these songs about her at Christmas time and it's kind of like, alright, all right, Mary, you go, you go back. We'll, we'll pull you out with the Christmas lights next year. And, and we don't really stop and think, you know, what, what do we do with Mary?
Jeffrey Heine:And she gets a bit of a bad rap, you know, with us protestants. And, and some of that, some of that scandal around Mary, really is the scandal of the fact that God was born in flesh. God came, humbled himself into our midst and took on flesh. And it was a scandal then, and it's a scandal now because we don't know what to do with that. The idea that God was born.
Jeffrey Heine:You see, it makes sense that that would still be a problem today. But something crucial comes out of our thoughts about Mary, how we regard Mary. Our beliefs on who Jesus is and what he came to do, who he claimed to be, these definitive thoughts about Jesus, they come out of really what we think about Mary. Because Jesus came out of Mary. See, there there there's something very crucial that God can teach us through these meditations, through thinking about what happened to Mary.
Jeffrey Heine:How God regarded her is crucial. The mother of Christ, the mother of God. Now the name mother of God that, that around 400, AD is when that issue kind of came up. And a lot of that issue of, can we call her the mother of God, came out of people denying the divinity of Jesus. They were they put all of their focus on the humanity of Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:He really lived. He really died because there were people completely questioning that. So as they kind of ran to that side of the ship and they put all that focus on the humanity of Christ, then all this emphasis left. The divinity of Christ. So then as everyone ran back to the divinity of Christ, there are all of these questions about the humanity of Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:And so they're saying she is the mother of Christ, the Messiah, the flesh, but she's also the mother of God. Not that she was the one that initiated the divinity of Christ, but she participated in the divinity of Christ. These are big concepts, and they really change how we regard Christ himself. As Timothy George has put it, our Christology, our thoughts on Christ come out of our Maryology, our thoughts on Mary. So what should we think about her?
Jeffrey Heine:You know, You know, what in this reformational the the reformational backlash that we kind of exist in, what what what do we really think about her? You know, Luther had a high regard for Mary, and so did Calvin. John Knox, not so much. But but there was this high regard that something really important happened here. First and foremost, she was a disciple long before she was a mother and she follows in a history of biblical mothers.
Jeffrey Heine:Sarah, Rachel, Hannah. And Mary was the way that God chose to enter his glory, Christ into the world. And Mary displays precisely how a servant of the Lord is supposed to respond to almighty God. And she responded with faith and worship. This is the third song that happens in Luke.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a it's the the first of 3. There are these three songs that happened in the Luke birth narrative. Mary, Zechariah, and then Simeon, which you heard read in our Advent reading. These songs happen. These people are full up with joy, rejoicing that Christ has come.
Jeffrey Heine:And they declare these words of praise to God, And they are written for us to marvel at Elizabeth, got noticed that she was going to be expecting. And then Mary was visited by the angel. And so Mary goes to see her relative Elizabeth. And that's when in Luke, chapter 1 verse 41 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 womb.
Jeffrey Heine: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. Verse 45 confirms our starting point. Mary believes this is going to happen to her.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, kind of against all odds, like really against all odds. And this word from the Lord comes to her and she believes it in response to Elizabeth's rejoicing. As Elizabeth praises Mary's faith, she praises the Lord for what he is doing. And immediately Mary responds. She declares this song, this hymn, this poem of praise to the lure to the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:And the depths of this poem, I mean, it's it's wild, at least 15 old testament references in these few verses. I mean, the implications are enormous And we're going to look at it kind of broken into 2 chunks. And in your worship guide, I put lines there to kind of separate the this first movement of the song and then the second movement of the song. And that's how we're going to deal with them. And they kind of have these lead verses that start off these 2 sections.
Jeffrey Heine:And the first one is verse 46. And there are really 2 concepts that we're going to consider as we're walking through these verses. And the first one is this, that worship is personal. Worship is supposed to be a personal activity. So looking at verse 46, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior.
Jeffrey Heine:So just to go ahead and dispel any concerns that you might have, God, my savior, Mary in need of salvation. Mary in need of a savior. Mary recognizing her own sinfulness and her own need to be rescued by a savior, out of the gate recognized God, my savior. The objective of worship is the magnification of God and the joy of the believer. What does it mean to magnify the Lord?
Jeffrey Heine:To exalt, to bring attention, to, to make great, to bring focus to, to magnify the Lord. I'm hard pressed to think about when I worship like that. To magnify the lord. And not only that, for her soul to do it. Magnifying the Lord in our work, in our day to day life.
Jeffrey Heine:Is your worship joyful? Your mind might immediately go to happiness or a good feeling during song singing in a church. But worship must be more than that. You were set free from sin, and and you were given the position as a child of the living God for more than just church services. For more than just songs.
Jeffrey Heine:AW Tozer said, we are brought to God and to faith and to salvation that we might worship and adore him. This is for all of life To magnify, to bring recognition, to bring focus to the Lord. Worship is personal and worship is with the whole being, the whole person. See how Mary declares that her soul magnifies the Lord. Not her voice, not simply her work or her actions, it is her soul, the seat of her existence, the core of who she is, that is worshiping the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Everything she is worships. And I I would imagine that this is going back to thoughts on Hannah. Hannah, who was barren, who long desired a child, and it says that when she would go and worship and pray that she would pour her soul out to the Lord. Mary knew this story well. And I'm sure that on the 70 miles that it took to get to Elizabeth's house from seeing the angel and and having this news declared to her and making her way.
Jeffrey Heine:She thought about Sarah. She thought about Hannah. She thought about women who had heard a promise from God and seen God proven faithful. And her soul magnifies the Lord. And her spirit rejoices in God, her savior.
Jeffrey Heine:Martin Luther said in a commentary on the Magnificat. This this is referred to in sometimes as the Magnificat because of the first word magnify in Latin, magnificat. As he reflected on Mary's song, he said this, quote, when we experience the goodness that is so rapturously great in God's works, that all our words and thoughts fall short. Our whole life should be excited as if everything in us wants to sing praises. Do you, do you ever experience that ever?
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, I hear these things. I hear these words and I, I look at Mary and I wonder if I have ever experienced that. Or have I've grown so accustomed to church services and I have so compartmentalized worship to 5 or 6 songs on a Sunday that I have missed what worship is. And Mary, in her still magnifying the Lord, brings our focus to this kind of worship. Worship is personal.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at verse 48. For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. Worship is the consequence of experiencing God and being his servant. She uses the the word slave there, bond servant, doulos. Mary knows and loves God because she has encountered him.
Jeffrey Heine:She has experienced God. And through that experience, she knows him and she loves him. We cannot get to this place of magnifying God if we do not know him and we do not love him. And we do not know him and we do not love him unless we have experienced him, unless we have encountered him in Christ. None come to the father except through me.
Jeffrey Heine:That in Christ, this is where we encounter God himself. And in encountering him, we can know him. And in knowing him, we can love him, Which sets us up to magnify. The humble estate of his servant. She means this, Mary's poor.
Jeffrey Heine:And this is confirmed, she marries a poor person. She's not necessarily, you know, marrying up as it were. She's marrying a carpenter. And in the reading, the advent reading that you heard tonight, the 2 turtle doves, you know that line from the longest Christmas song that we have. If you hear it on the radio, like, you you you're you're in for it.
Jeffrey Heine:It's it's it's the long ones. 12 days of Christmas, the 2 turtle doves. Well, that comes from Mary and Joseph bringing 2 turtle doves to sacrifice. And as some of you might know, that's the substitute sacrifice. See, the law of Moses, the law of the lord that's being referenced there, they are to bring a lamb.
Jeffrey Heine:And they can't afford a lamb. Even in even in worship, I mean, even in, like, the hard press, like, it's time to worship the Lord, you've had your firstborn son, he has opened the womb, he should be called holy to the Lord, this is a big deal, and you can't get the money together to buy a lamb. They were poor. Humble estate. Luther said that the line of David was as regarded as a dead block of wood.
Jeffrey Heine:So when when you hear son of David, when you hear that that line has been going on and it's being fulfilled in Christ, don't think that that's a line that's respected anymore. They had no hope that a great and glorious king would come through that line. That hope was forgotten. That hope was abandoned Because there had been silence. Long period of silence.
Jeffrey Heine:There had been this Maccabean revolt when the Syrians came in, like 1 65, 167 BC. There was another siege on Jerusalem and they fought back and they did their best, but the Syrians got in there and they started pagan worship in the temple of the Lord. Pigs were being slaughtered by Jews because they were forced to do it. The Syrians were forcing them to desecrate their own altar by sacrificing pigs. But some of them revolted.
Jeffrey Heine:And about a 3 year battle went on, and they were able to take over the temple again. And they took it over and they dedicated it back to the Lord. And they lit this little candle that had been, prescribed to them as a candle that was supposed to be lit in the temple. And because of the ransacked Jerusalem, they only had enough oil for one day and it continued to burn for 8 nights. That's Hanukkah.
Jeffrey Heine:But all throughout that time, that difficult struggle, there was silence from the Lord. No prophet raised up. And then this poor, humble servant is visited by an angel. And declared to her, the poorest of the poor, the Messiah will come from you. See, when she says that all nations will call her blessed, this isn't Mary on a power trip.
Jeffrey Heine:Right? This is Mary caught off guard, completely unprepared for what she is facing. Verse 48b, for behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. Calling Mary blessed, this was not because of her virginity or her simplicity, but because God regarded Mary. God remembered this humble servant and through her will bless the world.
Jeffrey Heine:And we should be a part of the generations calling her blessed, not to deify her, not to pray to her in some way that would be out of, kilter with how we are to regard God himself and God alone. For we know that God is alone and one, but we should join the generations in calling Mary blessed. Blessing. Verse 49, For he who is mighty has gone has done great things for me, and holy is his name. Worship is personal.
Jeffrey Heine:It testifies to who God is, who God is. He is mighty and he is holy. As Joel pointed out last week, he is all mighty. There are no powers above him. No situation too great for him.
Jeffrey Heine:No army too strong, no circumstance too complicated. He is all mighty. Supremely mighty. So mighty that when it, when others, from him. And those in power are like running waters in his hands.
Jeffrey Heine:He can direct them to the left or to the right. And as declared last week in the life of Sarah and here again in the life of Mary, nothing is too great, Nothing is impossible for God. His name, his person is holy. Mighty and holy is the Lord. And then this moves us to the second half of the song.
Jeffrey Heine:Because Mary shifts her focus from herself. Verse 50. The header to this new section. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. This section begins to inform us that worship is communal.
Jeffrey Heine:His mercy is for those who fear Him for from generation to generation. She moves from looking at herself to the greater community and not even one that's, held tight by time, but all generations. She sees that the mighty one is responsible for great things and continues to bless his name. And she qualifies the mercy of God. The mercy is given to those who fear him.
Jeffrey Heine:And fear is a common theme in the Christmas story. The angel tells Mary not to be afraid. The angels tell the shepherds not to be afraid, but Mary tells us to be afraid. She tells us to fear, but not be afraid like the angels were declaring to Mary and to the shepherds that scared afraid, but the reverence, the fear and reverence. The angels were just calming scared individuals.
Jeffrey Heine:They will they were startled in the night and they were afraid, but Mary means something far different. She recognizes that the great mercy of God is accompanied by the great revelation of his power and his holiness. And that in reverence is terrifying, but there is mercy. And it's for those who fear him. God being merciful is very important throughout the birth narrative here in Luke.
Jeffrey Heine:It's mentioned 5 different times, the mercy of God. And that moves us to the next thing that worship testifies to what God has done and what he will do. So it declares who he is, but it also declares what he has done and what he will do, what he will accomplish. The great works of God. Look at verses 51 through 53.
Jeffrey Heine:He has shown strength with his arm, and he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. You see that strength with his arm, and he has scattered the proud. And not just the proud that are in power, but the proud in their hearts, which even poor people can do. And he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate, brought down the mighty, and he has brought up the humble. And he has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty.
Jeffrey Heine:See those 3, the proud, the mighty, and the rich, they endure the might of the Lord. But the humble, the poor, the hungry, they receive the mercy of the Lord. And the mercy of God is all the more noticeable when it's contrasted like this. I mean the the another just complicated facet of this poem and this hymn is how intricate it is. See what she's saying is that God is the only mighty one.
Jeffrey Heine:He's the only powerful one. And whatever he chooses to do will be accomplished completely and fully. And although they had those years of silence, years of slavery, and what appeared to be abandonment, God has not forgotten Israel. He has not forgotten his promises. He values what the world does not and he devalues what the world values.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus will embody the same kind of work, Turning things upside down, eating with tax collectors, showing mercy to prostitutes. In verses 54 and 55, he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever. Worship. In God's promises. See, God has helped and remembered Israel, and he has brought mercy to her through the Messiah.
Jeffrey Heine:And we stand with the saints, with the offspring forever, with Abraham himself, and declare God's mercy fulfilled in Christ. See, this is how we end up, where Joel began. God's promise to Abraham. God's promise to Abraham that the nations would be blessed through him. That he would be the father of many nations.
Jeffrey Heine:And this would come to this highlighted moment where this poor girl, this poor virgin, would bear the Messiah. The manifestation of God's mercy fulfilled in Christ. In Christ. God's covenant promise fulfilled in Christ. And he is fulfilling this promise through the life of this young woman.
Jeffrey Heine:Worship isn't simply communal in the immediate context, like that we gather together, that we are with other people. But when we stand in these promises of God, when we worship him in spirit and in truth, we stand with the generations who fear Him, who revere Him. We worship communally with the saints. Mary declares what God is doing through her and how what God is doing fulfills the promises of God. I want my soul to magnify the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:I want my spirit to rejoice in God, my savior. But how do we break out of these small expectations of worship? And have you left a service before here or somewhere else and thought to yourself, it's a good service. You kinda critique a couple things here or there. Did you encounter God himself?
Jeffrey Heine:Did you want to? Was that even an objective on your mind? Had you desired it when you woke up that morning, and did you think, I'm sure glad that this church meets at night. I just kinda need some time. You know, do you desire these things?
Jeffrey Heine:Do you want to encounter God? I think that these are serious questions that we have to ask because if we hold up Mary as an example of a servant of the Lord, one who worships him. Does anything in her resonate in us? Worship is personal and communal. And one of the great benefits of communal worship is that we teach one another.
Jeffrey Heine:We show one another what it means to magnify the Lord. And so if you are wondering, how do I, how do I begin to even desire worship like this? Let alone actually do it. How do I even desire it? One of the ways is to get around people that magnify the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Get into a community of people that desire to encounter Him, and preach to one another the gospel. I mean, I I have I have a very soft spot in in my heart for, monks. And I I I love I love the idea of it, but maybe it's just because I like quiet. But but there's something horribly amiss with solitude. And that is the richness that God gave us in one another.
Jeffrey Heine:You see, I don't have it all together. You don't have it all together, but but we will seek after this magnification of the Lord together. And that you will have weeks and days and years that are hard and difficult, full of struggle and mourning. And you will have years weeks days and hours full of great joy. And if we walk together in these things, we will sing to God.
Jeffrey Heine:We will magnify him together. See, this is a supreme objective of the body of Christ to magnify the Lord. See if, if you're looking though for corporate time to be your filling up time for the week, You know, you come in empty, you come into the church service to fill up, and then you just kind of burn it throughout the week until you're running on fumes on Friday Saturday. You you've you're mistaken. See, during the week, that that time in God's word, that time magnifying him throughout the week, that when we come together, you are ready to pour out that worship.
Jeffrey Heine:See, that is how we encourage one another. We lead one another. We display for one another magnification of the Lord. That's how we even begin to understand what that kind of a life looks like. So this week, this Christmas week, treasure in your hearts and minds what God has done in the incarnation.
Jeffrey Heine:What he has done as the Word made flesh to dwell amongst us. Almighty God humbled himself into the flesh of a baby. And Mary held him against her chest. His heart beating next to hers. And that was the heartbeat of the creator of all things, seen and unseen, beating next to his servant's heart, his mother.
Jeffrey Heine:What a blessed servant. To know so personally the great mercy of God who has come to us to redeem us. Let's pray. And up in her heart and pondered them. I pray that you would give us grace to do the same.
Jeffrey Heine:That by abiding in Christ as we go into this week, that we would ponder what you have done and who you are. That we would treasure in our hearts the word made flesh, and that we would seek to magnify you every day. Teach us to be a people who worship you, who desire you, who long for you. And I pray that you would do that even as we move into this time of communion. We pray these things in the name of Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen.
