Untitled Sermon (3)

Good Morning church! If you have a Bible go to the gospel of Luke chapter 1. We will be looking at verses 39-56 this morning.

If you are new to River Valley, Welcome, My name is Ryan and I am the Lead Pastor here. If you have been here for a while and you have forgotten who I am....good to see you again.

I took the last couple weeks off, taking time for myself and my family. Recharging my batteries before heading into a new year of ministry here at RVC.

My family and I had the opportunity to go out of town last weekend and the undivided attention to them really did my soul good. We were able to take them to the Ark and the kids loved it. I had a conversation with our elders about a month ago about this potential trip with my family and it included an overnight stay at Great Wolf Lodge. Its an indoor water park and hotel and my family loves it. But due to the increased price of the stay we decided it wasn't wise for our family to spend that kind of money at this time. A couple days before we were supposed to go out of town Pastor Aaron sends me an email with a confirmation code for our room at Great Wolf and he says that people in the church love us and they helped out with the expenses. So whoever that was, thank you. It meant more than you know. I love you guys.

I want to say a huge thanks to Pastor Aaron and Pastor Dwight for filling in for me. River Valley is truly blessed with godly men to preach here on this stage and also preach other places as needed. I was telling a couple pastor friends about my time off and they were blown away that we had men inside this church that could carry on the preaching responsibilities. Its actually very humbling to me to know that God really doesn't need me here....rather he chooses to use me. The show could and it can go on without me. So seeing that, I am even more blessed to be your lead pastor.

Before my break I think I was on week 13 straight preaching. Needless to say I am excited and ready to preach this morning and well into next year.

I may preach for over an hour this morning, who knows. Get comfortable. Hope you didn't make lunch plans.

Let me pray and then we will hear from the Lord.

PRAY

STEP AWAY FROM PULPIT

Overshadowing News . Someone gets engaged at a wedding. Someone announces a birth at another baby shower etc....

Let me set this scene up for you. You have Elizabeth, a woman advanced in years who was also barren who FINALLY get pregnant. Mary, her cousin goes to visit her as she celebrates the coming birth of John.....in the mean time, word gets out that Mary is expecting. The news of Mary’s child overshadows the celebration of Elizabeth.

Women in the room this morning. If you were Elizabeth, how would you feel? You have been praying for a child for years. You are finally pregnant and you invite your family to come celebrate. In that time, news comes out that someone else is also pregnant.

If there is one common theme in these verses its Joy. There are three people in this text that express Joy. These three people are also our three points.

The Joy of Elizabeth. The Joy of John. The joy of Mary.

Lets look at verse 39 and 40

Luke 1:39–40 (ESV)

39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

The angel just told her she was going to have a child. She may or may not have been pregnant at this time but here we see that she desperately wants to celebrate with her cousin the news of her baby, John.

I got to thinking about this....I am almost certain that Elizabeth has no idea of Mary’s pregnancy, and Im not even sure Jospeh knows at this point. To Mary, its her own secret.

Mary is traveling, not by herself because it wasn't custom for young unmarried women to travel alone, so she was probably with a group of friends all going to see Elizabeth.

Verse 41…we are going to see the Joy of John

Luke 1:41 (ESV)

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

Do you see what this verse is saying? Mary greets Elizabeth and the BABY leaped in her womb.

When John heard the voice of the mother of the messiah he started doing cartwheels in the womb.

Notice the word that DR LUKE, A MEDICAL DOCTOR uses....a baby.

I did a little word study on the word baby. You want to know what the word baby means? BABY!

It doesn't say that the fetus leaped, or the clump of cells leaped…no the baby leaped.

This same word for baby is used to talk about Jesus AFTER his birth. So in the womb or out of the womb the word baby means the same thing.

This verse totally debunks any abortion argument.

The Psalms say in my mothers womb you knew me and you formed me. You know all of my innermost parts.

And we have Christians today celebrating the right to choose. Christians supporting the fact that millions of babies are murdered every single year.

The Bible is extremely clear.

Do you want to know what Satan’s number one tactic is to try and thwart God’s plan? Its kill babies.

We see this in the Old Testament and New as well. When Moses was born Pharoah gave a command that all male babies two years and younger be killed. When Christ was born King Herod gave the exact same command. Kill babies. It was Satan’s tactic then…and its still his tactic today.

Not only did the baby leap, but Elizabeth was filled with the Spirit.

Before the resurrection and the start of the church, the holy spirit would come upon people for a specific purpose and then the Spirit would leave. Today the sprit indwells the believer. You have all the spirit you will ever get at the moment of regeneration.

So what was Elizabeth purpose to receive the spirit here? I believe it was to know that Mary was also pregnant.

This goes into Elizabeth’s joy, verse 42 and 43

Luke 1:42–43 (ESV)

42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Notice that this was supposed to be all about her. They are celebrating the birth announcement of John. But Elizabeth turns the attention to Mary, the mother of HER Lord.

Elizabeth understood that the world doesn't revolve around her. And thats a lesson some of you need today. When the focus is on Christ, who cares about anything else. It’s not about you, it’s not about me.

I want to focus on what she says about Mary. Blessed are you among women.

She didn't elevate Mary above women. She didn't elevate Mary above the baby she was carrying. She kept Mary in her rightful place. (we are gonna see more of this later.)

The text goes back to the Joy of John, verse 44

Luke 1:44 (ESV)

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

and then in verse 45 Elizabeth projects a blessing over Mary

Luke 1:45 (ESV)

45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

She is blessed because she had believed.

Mary had faith that what the angel told her was true.

When you believe God at his word. You are blessed.

Sometimes the things that God tells us are hard to comprehend or understand. We are never commanded to figure things out on our own…we are simply commanded to believe.

The news that Gabriel gave Mary was crazy.

An unwed teenager, who was a virgin was going to be pregnant. That doesn't make biological sense....but she believed.

And next we see Mary’s response to the news she is pregnant.....joy.

This joy is expressed as a song. If you have a Bible that has titles you will see The Magnificat. This song from Mary is extremely popular within church tradition. Mary pulls from sources from the Old Testament to express how she is feeling.

Its also not a coincidence that whenever God does something amazing the response is always worship. We see this time and time again in the Bible.

Adam sees his naked wife for the first time, he starts singing.

David has a moment of true worship. He starts singing and dancing,

Hannah is blessed with a child named Samuel she sings.

When we get to heaven and see Jesus…we will fall on our face and sing. Forever.

Some of you get uncomfortable when we sing in church. But if you have been shown mercy and grace and if God has done things in your life you can’t help but stand, lift your voice and your hands.

And I will touch on this while I am here. I would LOVE to have the band back on Sundays full time. I really would. But its just really hard in this season.

If your worship is less when we don’t have a band and we only have acoustic and a couple vocals....might want to check who you are worshipping.

Moving on lol

Marys song is broken down into three parts. What God has done for her. What God has done for us. And what God has done for Israel.

Lets look at verse 46 and 47

Luke 1:46–47 (ESV)

46 And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

In this song of praise, Mary is singing to two of the trinity. This is really cool

My soul magnifies the LORD

That word Lord is adonai....master....a common name that Dr Luke gave Jesus

My spirit rejoices in God....That’s God the father.

So you have Mary singing to Jesus, in her womb, and also signing to God the father of Jesus.

Spirit rejoices in God MY SAVIOR.

Some people like to elevate Mary to a place where she shouldn't be.

Was she special? Absolutely.

Our catholic friends even believe that she was sinless…but this song tells us otherwise. She calls God her SAVIOR.

You don’t need a savior if you are sinless.

Verse 48 and 49

Luke 1:48–49 (ESV)

48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

Talk through this one....

Next we see Mary turn her song toward what God does for us!

Luke 1:50 (ESV)

50 And his mercy is for those who fear him

from generation to generation.

PREACH!

Luke 1:51–53 ESV

51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; 52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; 53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

PREACH

Lastly we see what God has done for Israel

Luke 1:54–55 ESV

54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55 as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

Last verse.

Luke 1:56 ESV

56 And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months, until the birth of John the baptist.

Luke says that she returned to her home. The way this is constructed in the greek is that is was actually her home. Not Joseph’s. She remained pure and a virgin until after the birth of Jesus

Preach

RVC Giving this week

1,000 to new heights

500 to HHS

Pray and close