The Joy That Comes with Belief

We will look this morning at what has quickly risen for me among my ever growing list of favorite passages. I say that because in the study of this passage, I have found that this short narrative, that describes the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth as well as the sons they each carried and the resulting excitement and joy they had, has given me great joy and excitement and interest as I have contemplated its meaning over the past many days of studying it.

In so many ways, this passage has sharpened for me certain beliefs that I held. Perhaps I could say that things I already believed I believe with even more confidence after having prepared this message. I will explain more as we get into it, but let me give one example. I have always believed that life begins at conception, that all life is sacred, even while still in the womb, but from this day forward, if I have any conversations about the sanctity of life, I will not fail to mention the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth. I believe that the Christian is compelled by scripture to be pro-life, and this passage very clearly for me makes the case much stronger.

We will get into that at some point, but let us first consider what it is that we are to take away from this passage. In fact, I believe this is one of those short passages that could be preached with many focuses, all of them valid and correct. A sermon series could easily be made of just these seven verses. However, in the interest of reaching Luke 2 by Christmas time, we will keep to just one sermon on this passage, unless i change my mind during the week, which is entirely possible.

The Big Idea that I am going to focus on for this morning, however, is this:

When God confirms His Word, we should joyfully celebrate his gifts to us.

As we look to that main idea, let us consider the following things that all happen in this brief encounter:

Energy

Excitement

Explanation

Encouragement

Energy - Mary quickly put her faith into action and went to Elizabeth (Holy Spirit empowerment)

Excitement - Elizabeth and John reacted (Holy Spirit endorsement)

Explanation - Elizabeth explained her excitement (Holy Spirit Exposition)

Encouragement - Elizabeth encouraged Mary (Holy Spirit Exhortation)

Let me quickly set up this passage by reminding you of where we were last week. Last week, we looked at how the angel Gabriel came to speak with Mary to give her the news of how she was going to be God’s servant in one of the most amazing and certainly the most unique roles in all of His salvation story. Unique because no other virgin girl or woman has ever had the role of having a baby for any reason, much less to be chosen to bear the very Son of God.

And Mary submitted to the role she was given with great faith, and now we move into what she does next, which is to travel to see Elizabeth, who the angel has just told her was in her sixth month.

Luke 1:39–45 ESV

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your 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.”

When God confirms His Word, we should joyfully celebrate his gifts to us.

Energy

Excitement

Explanation

Encouragement

You may have noticed I am using the letter E this morning, so hang in there, it will go even further with those Es. In fact, there is a whole other set of E’s that we will use. The First E we will discuss is Energy. And linked to that E, Energy, is another E, empowerment. Holy Spirit Empowerment

Energy: Mary quickly put her faith into action and went to Elizabeth. (Holy Spirit Empowerment)

Mary hurried, or went with haste, she moved with great energy. This energy came from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. We can be grateful for Luke, he taught us a lot about how the Holy Spirit gives people empowerment. Mary’s energy was not all of her own energy. She is empowered by the Holy Spirit. And she hurried, went with haste. And so it is that many Bible scholars agree that Mary was probably at this meeting with Elizabeth within about 4 days of her meeting with Gabriel. We may be left with questions about her hurrying to Elizabeth. Did she explain things to her parents? Did she tell them at all? How well did she even know Elizabeth? Were they close like some relatives, where they had a deep love and affection for one another, or were they more like some relatives, where we know who they are and have seen them but we really don’t know much about them?

Scripture does not tell us all of this, but we do know that the journey by foot that Mary took was about 3-4 days. But the wording Luke uses is that she went in a hurry or with great haste. She moved with intention. And why not? She had the encounter with Gabriel, and we can safely assume that almost immediately the Holy Spirit had come upon her to bring about the miracle of the baby Jesus in her womb. Did she have a sense of when this happened? Did a warm feeling come over her? Did she understand that the baby was already beginning to grow?

We only know she offered herself in obedience and submission and in humility. But as the angel was telling her about what would happen to her, as a further confirmation of the truth of this message, he told her that her relative, Elizabeth, in her old age had conceived a son and she was already in her sixth month of pregnancy. Of course, this was probably new to Mary that she was just receiving. But after the announcement, something compelled her to rush to Elizabeth. And why did she rush to Elizabeth? Perhaps she wanted her faith increased by verifying the truth of Gabriel’s message.

Or maybe she just was so excited about what was happening to her that she wanted to talk about it with someone who was also experiencing the hand of God in an amazing way. Certainly we could understand if she wanted to share her excitement with someone. Some have said that she was fleeing her familiar surroundings to protect herself from being condemned as an adulteress, but I am not so inclined to take this reason as seriously. For one, scripture doesn’t tell us directly that this was the case. But also, we will learn later that she would stay with Elizabeth about 3 months and then go back home. Since the first three months of a pregnancy can be easily hidden, would it not make more sense, if her concern was the neighbors talking, that she would leave, not for the first 3 months, but for the last several months?

At any rate, Mary was in a hurry, and she was energized by the holy spirit, who empowers people to do things.

When God confirms His Word, we should joyfully celebrate his gifts to us.

Our next E is Excitement:

Excitement: Elizabeth and John reacted to the arrival of Mary (and Jesus). This excitement shows us the Holy Spirit endorsement of Mary’s chid.

This excitement is explained by both action and word. In action, the baby, John, leaped in Elizabeth’s womb. When a mother is carrying a baby in the womb, there is a point where she begins to feel the movement of the baby. And sometimes it becomes clear that the baby is reacting to the sound of the parent’s voice. A baby may move, kick outward, turn around. We know even more about this than Mary and Elizabeth, since ultrasounds have shown babies will grab their feet, suck their thumb, and do other actions in the womb.

But even without ultrasounds, mothers throughout human history have had the excitement of feeling their baby move within the womb. In scripture we see another example of this. Scripture tells us that Rebekah’s children struggled within her. And she must have realized this, because she asked “why is this happening to me?” You see, that is the thing about her twin boys, they were already struggling with each other, even before they were born.

But the movement of babies in the womb is quite normal. In this case, however, something was clearly different. This baby, John, leaped in the womb. This action was something other than what Elizabeth had normally observed. This was different. And certainly this is one of those verifications of what has been told thus far. Remember what Gabriel had told Zechariah about this child, “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.

You see, it is normal for a baby to make a movement in reaction to his mother’s voice. But it is not normal for a baby to leap at the arrival of a stranger. When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. Leaping is a sign of excitement. You may remember that David leaped and danced when the ark arrived. So much that his wife Michal saw his uncontainable joy that she despised him, and as a result she never had a child.

But in this case, the excitement of the baby John was a contagious excitement that Elizabeth joined in on. The excitement of the baby was evidenced by movement, the excitement of Elizabeth was manifested in words. It says she exclaimed with a loud cry. the NLT says Elizabeth gave a glad cry. She was excited as well. Her excitement raises other questions for us to consider, such as “How did she know the things she was saying?” The answer is the Holy Spirit of course, we will get there in a moment.

Luke 1:42 ESV

and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!

So John reacted by jumping or leaping in the womb. Elizabeth responded by making a declaration. This excitement is evidence of the Holy Spirit’s endorsement. The Holy Spirit is endorsing Mary and her child to Elizabeth, before Mary even has a chance to tell Elizabeth what happened. And somehow, Elizabeth knows the moment Mary arrives that she is carrying the Lord. Luke1.43

Luke 1:43 ESV

And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Elizabeth recognizes that Mary is pregnant, which certainly could not be something she observed physically, since the baby was only 4-5 days old, and not only that, but that this child was Messiah.

Now, excitement is great. But what happens when someone is excited but no one knows why? Have you ever been so excited about something you couldn’t speak? Or maybe you have known someone so excited they couldn’t speak? What happens then? You can see the excitement on their face, and to an extent, it is a contagious excitement, but at some point, unless they tell you why they are excited, you are not able to fully share in their delight.

So Elizabeth now explains why she has said what she has said.

Explanation - Elizabeth explained her excitement (Holy Spirit Exposition)

Holy Spirit exposition. What is Exposition? Well, we call a style of preaching expository. It is taking the word, verse by verse and explaining its meaning. This is what I attempt to do each week. The Bible is not always immediately clear to those who read or hear it, so an explanation is sometimes needed. In Nehemiah, when the law was read, the priests, after the law was read, helped the people to understand the Law. They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

And in Acts 8, we see that the Ethiopian eunuch realized he needed someone to explain God’s Word to him. Acts8.30-31

Acts 8:30–31 ESV

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

So sometimes we need an explanation. Elizabeth Explains here excitement, but even her explanation is only based on what she understood. She says this:

Luke 1:44 ESV

For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

Now we can see that Elizabeth does not fully understand how she knows what she knows. She knows that when Mary spoke, the baby leaped, but this does not explain why she knows that Mary is blessed among women, or more literally, Mary is blessed above all women. It doesn’t explain how she knew Mary was the mother of her Lord. You see, Elizabeth gives an explanation, but from her observations as a human, there is no way she could have known these things.

Simon Peter did not get credit for knowing that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, to which Jesus replied: Mat16.17

Matthew 16:17 ESV

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

In the same way, we can see that Elizabeth has not somehow deduced by reasoning what she is saying. This is Holy Spirit empowered exposition.

Now, I want to talk about what I meant earlier when I said this passage is one of my new go-to passages regarding the sanctity of life. Now, there are those who support abortion being available and legal. Yet even among them, most people agree that abortions in the third trimester should be illegal. In fact, most countries that do allow abortion outlaw it after the sixth month. Maybe in a sense it comes from that realization that this is a real baby. After all, you can see that it is taking up some space in that mother’s womb, and you can even feel it kick.

All but the most extreme abortion proponents agree with this. But what about the first several months of pregnancy? There are those who would say that that is not a human being yet, but only a potential human being. Now, logically, this doesn’t hold up. From the very moment of conception, there is a new life with its own unique DNA.

Christians have wrestled with this question of when life begins, yet really, it does begin at conception. You see, just because the baby is not fully formed yet, this does not mean that it is not a human being. And here, if any true believer, who would claim to believe in the authority of scripture, had any question at all whether a newly conceived child is a real human being, they need only look to this passage to have the answer. Because I’m sure that no Christian would dare say that John the Baptist, having grown for 6 months in the womb, to the point that he could leap in the womb, was not a human.

I can’t imagine any true believer saying that a baby who could be felt in the womb by its mother was only a potential human being and not yet fully human. No true believer would say that Elizabeth could still choose at 6 months to kill that baby. I’m sure that among true believers we would find agreement here. However, there are some who may say that in the first trimester this baby is not yet viable, and therefore could be aborted. So what about the other baby in this story? What about Jesus?

At 4 1/2 days after conception, the scientists call it a Zygote. and at that point they say there are just over 100 cells. If you tried to hold it in your hand you would not see it. And yet, the cousin of this child, still in the womb, filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb, recognizes the arrival of that 4-5 day old human. Let me draw from this well reasoned statement for Kent Hughes:

Luke, Vol. 1—That You May Know the Truth (John Leaps (vv. 40–41))

As a fetus of six months, John was an emotional being. He had the capacity to be filled with the Spirit. He was so overcome that he leapt for joy. This is a sobering revelation for anyone who countenances abortion, but especially for Christians.But there is more. Mary had already conceived. She was three or four days pregnant. Jesus was a zygote, and when Jesus, a zygote in the womb of his mother, entered the room, John the Baptist, a six-month-old fetus in Elizabeth’s womb, leapt for joy. And Elizabeth addressed Mary in the present tense as “the mother of my Lord” (v. 43).In view of all this, I pose this question: if young Mary had gotten an abortion, what would she have aborted—a potential human being or the person of the eternal Son of God? Only one answer is possible.

So Elizabeth explained what she could to Mary. This was Holy Spirit exposition. You see, unless exposition is guided by the Spirit it will miss its mark. But Elizabeth, having been filled with the Holy Spirit, declares that this is the mother of her Lord. And like Peter, who declared that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, this was not something she figured out because she had gifts of observation like Sherlock Holmes, but instead, the Holy Spirit gave this information to her.

When God confirms His Word, we should joyfully celebrate his gifts to us.

We get now to our final E:

Encouragement - Elizabeth encouraged Mary (Holy Spirit Exhortation)

Luke 1:42–45 ESV

and she exclaimed with a 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.”

The NIRV says Elizabeth said “But why is God so kind to me?”. This is the question for every believer. Why is God so kind to me?

This encouragement, or Holy Spirit Exhortation, must have resulted in ever increasing joy and faith for Mary. She has now seen Elizabeth and that what the angel had told her about Elizabeth was true, that she had conceived in her old age. You see, God is gracious to give us glimpses of His faithfulness that bring us great joy.

In this case, it is more than a glimpse. Imagine how encouraging this must have been! And it should cause us to ask ourselves, how can we likewise encourage others? If we hold that the scriptures are true, we must believe the account of this encounter. We must learn from Elizabeth the humility required to Celebrate with joy when someone is blessed even beyond what we ourselves were. When God confirms his Word to us, our faith must increase, and we must worship. When we don’t believe, our unbelief is an assault on the character of God. When we refuse to worship him with joy, it is an affront to his majesty.

So we need to practice celebrating good news that others have received. We need to model the humility of Elizabeth, who did not feel any need whatsoever to compete with Mary, but rather rejoiced to be given the grace to play her part. It has been said it is easier to mourn with those who mourn than to rejoice with those who rejoice.

This is certainly true outside the church. You know it to be true. Complain, or have something to mourn about, and people will join in. But to celebrate some achievement or some blessing or other source of joy in this world often does not bring out much support. Not many people will be happy for you. Let it not be said in the church, that we cannot celebrate with each other the joy-giving events of life.

Energy - Mary quickly put her faith into action and went to Elizabeth (Holy Spirit empowerment)

Excitement - Elizabeth and John reacted (Holy Spirit endorsement)

Explanation - Elizabeth explained her excitement (Holy Spirit Exposition)

Encouragement - Elizabeth encouraged Mary (Holy Spirit Exhortation)

When God confirms His Word, we should joyfully celebrate his gifts to us.

David was so excited when the ark was brought back to Israel because it signified the presence of the Lord. He danced with all his might. He was leaping and dancing. John leaped in the womb when the presence of God came near him. We know already he was filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb, and in a sense this was his first prophecy. He was announcing the Lord Jesus even before he was born.

Luke, as he writes this account, is sure to remind us again and again of God’s Holy Spirit and His part in this story. If we look at the gospels chronologically, Luke has the earliest narrative, because he starts with Zechariah in the temple. Mark and John jump right to the adulthood of both John and Jesus, (although John actually starts from the beginning, that is, the beginning of time) and Matthew begins with the birth of Jesus. So chronologically, Luke has the earliest gospel account. So the first mention of the Holy Spirit comes in Luk1.15

Luke 1:15 ESV

for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.

The second mention of the Holy Spirit is in Luk1.35

Luke 1:35 ESV

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

And the third is here Luk1.41

Luke 1:41 ESV

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,

Let us not forget that we need the Holy Spirit to understand. We need the Holy Spirit have the energy to serve God, that is, his empowerment. When the Holy Spirit confirms to us the truth of God’s Word, that is his endorsement of these truths that brings us excitement. When we need the Word clarified, the Holy Spirit Exposits for us, so we have a more complete explanation of the things of God. And the Holy Spirit Exhorts, or encourages us in our faith.

Our job is to believe. We are commanded to do so, compelled to do so. Why does Elizabeth say Mary is blessed? because she believed.

Mary is blessed to believe. That is because belief itself is a gift. She is blessed because she believed in this sense: she was presently and would in the future receive blessing for her belief And She is blessed because she believed in this sense: blessed to have been given the gift of faith; Eph2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Have you received the gift of faith?

And so it is that Elizabeth felt exceedingly blessed. Her own blessing to be a mother finally, of course, but now she sees something even greater.