Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.11UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.1UNLIKELY
Joy
0.6LIKELY
Sadness
0.46UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.64LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.06UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.9LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.88LIKELY
Extraversion
0.41UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.97LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.65LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction:
Our God is a God of faithful fulfillment.
In fact, we will continually discuss fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies as we go through the book of Luke.
Theologians have shown that Jesus Christ fulfilled at least 300 Old Testament prophecies concerning His coming.
Some actually think it could be as many as 100-200 more than that.
A thorough study of this would take countless weeks to even scratch the surface.
Can you imagine the odds of a man fulfilling over 300 prophecies said about him hundreds and sometimes thousands of years before his birth?
The odds of such a man are almost zero.
But as we learned last week, our God is the God of the impossible.
He makes the impossible possible.
Prayer
Today we are going to see four responses that we should have to our faithful Father:
I.
Because We Know That God is Faithful in Fulfilling His Plan… We Should Believe the Lord (39-45)
Looking at verses 39-40 we see that...
Mary goes to the hill country - to a town in Judah - to visit Zechariah and Elizabeth.
You can see the map for details about her travel.
Some commentators assert that this may have been Hebron based on Joshua 21:10-11 where it mentions that the priests, the sons of Aaron, lived in this city in the hill country.
This was a city around 20-30 miles south of Jerusalem in the hill country as seen on this map.
However, we cannot be entirely sure that Mary went to Hebron specifically.
But why is she going there?
If we recall from verses 36-37 we saw that Gabriel told Mary that Elizabeth was miraculously six months pregnant with a son.
So in haste (or speedily or with zeal), Mary goes and visits Elizabeth and Zechariah.
It is unlikely that anyone in Nazareth is aware of Mary’s pregnancy at this time.
Matthew 1:18-25 seems to point that Joseph might have found out a little later in the pregnancy.
But what is likely is that she is seeking to spend time to Elizabeth to confirm and rejoice in the great promises that they had been given.
No one earth would understand what she had just experienced other than Elizabeth and Zechariah.
They were the only human beings on the planet who had the plan for the Messiah revealed to them.
And it appears Mary did not waste much time before going to Judea.
This trip was likely a 3-4 day journey away and was very atypical for a young Jewish girl to make a trip like this.
One could imagine the interchange between her and her family in setting out on a journey like this.
But no matter what happened, we are told that she headed out quickly.
Moving forward we see what happens once she arrives at the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth:
Luke 1:41,44 (ESV)
And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.....
For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
We see that once she arrives, Mary greets Zechariah and Elizabeth, and when she greets them the baby leaps in Elizabeth’s womb.
How amazing is it that this baby responds in an excited and praising way!
Remember verse 15?
I don’t want us to get lost in the weeds here as there are so many great points to discuss - But it is clear from this account that babies in the womb are human beings.
If Psalm 139, Genesis 1 and 2, and many other countless Scriptures do not convince you that life begins at conception, here is one that definitely should.
The baby John - while in his mother’s womb at around 6 months old - is responding with praise while already filled with the Holy Spirit and just being in the vicinity of the Lord Jesus in Mary’s womb.
How amazing is this my friends?
We have recently seen that both of these baby boys have already had their earthly lives prophesied about by the angel Gabriel.
We have heard who they would be and what they would do.
And now we see John the Baptist praising God from his mother’s womb!
And He is praising God about the baby Jesus who is likely only days to a couple of weeks from conception!
My friends, there is no question regarding when life begins with God.
He is clear in His Word that life begins at conception.
Moving forward we come to Elizabeth’s greeting back to Mary:
There is something easy to overlook in this section that we must not miss.
Elizabeth has not been told that Mary is pregnant.
Gabriel revealed Elizabeth’s pregnancy to Mary but did not reveal Mary’s future pregnancy to Elizabeth.
So we see the Holy Spirit prophesy through Elizabeth here about the coming of the Messiah!
We also see the humility of her words.
She is exalting Jesus and humbly acknowledging Mary as the mother of the Lord as well.
Here is a much older woman honoring a much younger woman!
This was very unique for this time period especially.
In this honoring discourse, Elizabeth ends with one final word of encouragement to Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit speaking through her:
The closing verse in verse 45 of this section is something that we should not gloss over.
Elizabeth, by the power of the Holy Spirit, recognizes that Mary has believed that there would be a fulfillment of what the Lord had spoken to her.
Remember Abraham in the Old Testament?
Our God is faithful.
Blessed are those who acknowledge and believe in His faithfulness.
I pray that each of you believe in our faithful Savior.
I pray that you have placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and repented of your sins.
He is faithful and willing to forgive you.
Humble yourselves before the great and mighty Savior - Jesus Christ.
Next we see that...
Scripture References: Joshua 21:10-11, Luke 1:36-37, Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:15, Psalm 119, Genesis 1-2, Genesis 15:6
II.
Because We Know That God is Faithful in Fulfilling His Plan… We Should Bless the Lord (46-49)
This section of Scripture starts out what is commonly referred to as Mary’s Song or Mary’s Magnificat.
The word Magnificat comes from the Latin word meaning ‘to magnify.’
My friend, Pastor Josh Bailey, speaks of this concept of magnifying God in the following way:
We do not take out a microscope as to see something small blown up for us to see more clearly.
Instead we take out a telescope to see something very vast in order that we might see Him more clearly.
That is the theme of Mary’s Song that we will see here.
She is magnifying the Lord.
And as we see, Mary begins by saying that she magnifies the Lord with all of herself - her soul and spirit - meaning all of her.
Why does she magnify the Lord?
Because He has looked upon her humble estate and shown her favor.
There is so much overlap here with Mary and Hannah in the Old Testament.
Hannah exalted the Lord in a beautiful prayer after being blessed with her son Samuel in 1 Samuel 2:1-2:
Mary expresses that God is worthy of all praise.
And she understands that God is her personal Savior.
She ends her initial blessing with verses 48-49:
If you recall, we mentioned last week that Mary was of low estate.
She was from Nazareth which was a very little known town.
But she states that from now on, all generations will call her blessed.
She realizes that she is not called blessed because of her personal holiness or worth - but instead because of the favor and working of God.
In other words:
She is not blessed based on what she has done or will do.
Instead, she is blessed because of what God has done and will continue doing.
She sees that she is blessed by One who is mighty and One who has done these great things for her - And by the One who is perfectly Holy.
Her selfless humility and magnification of God is exemplary here.
And it is in regard to this humility and magnification of God that we can learn from Mary.
Our default seems to be desiring to magnify ourselves.
We see this from the time we are young.
Children repeat the phrases over and over again - ‘Look at me’ and ‘Look at what I can do.’
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9