Meeting of the Mothers

Good Morning,

Today we are in Luke 1:39-45, and in today’s passage Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. Before we begin lets open with a word of prayer.

Pray 3+

If you could please open your bibles with me to Luke chapter 1 and I will start reading in verse 39, if you are using the pew Bible, it is going to be on page 948. Starting in verse 39 it reads,

Luke 1:39–45 “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. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 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? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.””

So this morning we am going to loosely use the outline from Bakers Expository Outlines from Luke because they have an excellent alliteration to help us remember, though I disagree with how they broke up the verses in it, which is why I say we will loosely use it. I am also using this outline because it is fitting with our service today.

Expository Outlines from Luke 3. Mary Visits Elisabeth (Luke 1:39–56)

1. Reaction—vv. 39–40. After the angel appears to Mary, she goes to her cousin, Elisabeth.

2. Recognition—v. 41. Mary has been accepted of God. Mary was not perfect. She was a human being like all people.

3. Rejoicing—vv. 42–44. Elisabeth rejoices that Mary (the mother of Jesus) would come to visit her.

4. Respect—v. 45. God had respect for Mary, permitting her to become the mother of Jesus.

In the outline they give us see these 4 points, that flow out of this passage today. We have the reaction, we have the recognition, we see rejoicing, and finally respect.

For those of you who are just joining us, we need some context for the reaction point to make any sense, but in our passage last week the angel Gabriel had come to Mary and given her this news that she was going to become pregnant and have a child despite the fact that she was a virgin. And while she, unlike Zechariah, did not ask for proof of this, Gabriel tells Mary, as evidence, her relative Elizabeth is with child. This is proof because up to this point Elizabeth had been barren and now she is advanced in years and past the age of child barring. This by all human standards seems like an impossibility and yet two verses before our passage today the angel says,

Luke 1:37 “37 For nothing will be impossible with God.””

1) Reaction

So what is Mary’s immediate reaction or response to the news, first in the passage from last week submission to the Lord, but here in our passage today we see an extension of that faithfulness and submission to the Lord. We see here arise and go with haste to her relative Elizabeth. Luke does not give much in terms of time or detail as to what preparations were needed.

If you look at the map on the screen, ignore the orange line, but Mary, when the message was given to her, was living up by the arrow in Nazareth all we are told is that she went to a small town in the hill country of Judah, which is the larger red oval near the bottom. The hill country was likely much bigger than the oval but I wanted a rough estimation for our purposes. She traveled roughly 80 to 100 miles, this was a three to four day journey, to visit her relative Elizabeth.

This is an act of obedience based on belief in what the Lord had told her. God had given her this sign or affirmation of His faithfulness and she is going to see what God did. The language here seems to indicate this is a near instant response to a leading from God. She makes this trip and greet Elizabeth and something interesting happens.

2) Recognition

John reacts before Elizabeth does. The whole infancy narrative is directing Luke’s readers to the future ministry. God is directing our sight to the fulfillment of His plan of salvation and even here in this we see John’s ministry at work as well. John was to be the forerunner, he was to prepare the hearts and minds of Isreal for the messiah. When he hears the voice of Mary, the mother of the messiah, John leaps and Elizabeth will later say he leapt with joy.

Even before his birth we see the Spirit at work in him like Gabriel had foretold in Luke 1:15 and his ministry begins even while in the womb. This was the purpose of his whole life, it was to point people to Jesus and that is why we see John react first, even here he was to glorify the coming messiah and because of the Spirit he gives recognition to the coming fulfillment. Then his mother, too is filled with the Holy Spirit. She too, recognizes that the child Mary is going to give birth to is superior to the John.

After the Holy Spirit fills here she begins to rejoice starting in verse 42.

3) Rejoicing

Luke 1:42–44 “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? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”

I want to notice something first off, by human standards Mary likely would not have even known she was with child yet. I am kind of weird so I looked it up and the earliest women notice that they are pregnant is a week or two, while most don’t notice until after the 5 week mark. Yet here it is revealed to Elizabeth, long before the average women would have known, let alone had any visible sign of being pregnant. This is something that was revealed to her completely by the work of the Holy Spirit and through him Elizabeth gives Mary this interesting blessing. We talked about this some last week but we will come back to it. More what I want us to see right now is this recognition right in the middle of the rejoicing.

Elizabeth too recognizes that Mary’s child is superior to even her. She does this by using the term Kyrios, a Greek word for someone in a position of authority or power over another. It is difficult to know if Elizabeth recognized the divine nature of son Mary bore. On one hand it would seem unlikely given the fact that He is not yet born, however, She is filled with the Spirit and everything about these two’s conceptions has been divine.

But what is more important is this amazement we see in her and the humility displayed. Everything in the statement points to this idea of amazement that she gets to be part of what the Lord is doing and that he came to her. I don’t know if she would know the reference that the angel had given her husband but he did, and she recognizes, something is different about these two children and that the Lord is doing something. The fact that she gets to be a part of that astounds her. It is an amazing realization that God is working in the world through you. John’s leap is a reminder of that fact and the fact that she can recognize the joy in his action adds to that sense of wonder she has. Do we rejoice like Elizabeth does here? The Lord came to her and she rejoices over it do we? The Lord has come to us and if you are here and your faith is in him he has come to you specifically and the Holy Spirit now resides within you does that give you a sense of awe and wonder. We can now be part of God’s plan of salvation being worked out in another individual. We like Elizabeth should wonder at this and it should drive us to worship Him for this blessing.

Then Elizabeth gives this final blessing in verse 45 of our passage.

Luke 1:45 “45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.””

This is an interesting blessing because unlike the other two this one is a blessing based upon something that Mary did. Again it says blessed is she who believed, she is blessed because she knew God would be faithful. This connects us back to our other blessings though. The two blessings back in verse 42 have an old testament connection and that same connection there drives this blessing here.

Turn with me to passage Marc read in Deuteronomy 28 and in that passage God gives the nation of Isreal several blessing for obedience. Starting in verse 1 it reads,

Deuteronomy 28:1–6 “1 “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.”

Here God is telling the nation that He would bless them if they faithfully obeyed His voice and we find here a blessing that the Jews formed into a common idiom. In his commentary on Luke, Darrell Bock writes this about the second blessing, “Elizabeth also blesses the child. The idiom fruit of the womb is a Hebraism (R. Brown 1977: 333). In the OT, a fruitful womb was considered a blessing from God and was related to faithful obedience to God (Deut. 7:13; 28:1, 4; contrast Lam. 2:20) or to God’s sovereign provision (Gen. 30:2). The child Mary bore was special.”

In our passage today, we have God through Elizabeth blessing Mary both of the two ways Bock describes. She is blessed because of God’s sovereign provision, not only to give her a child, but more than that, it was go be this child Jesus who would sit on the throne of David and have an everlasting kingdom. It would be through this son that the world might find redemption, through this son, who would be named Jesus, we might be saved if we believe in him.

But there is more to it that simple belief in some facts, and we see that in the last blessing. This is a belief in the one who changes who we are, we through him are made new and made more and more into his image. This is a belief that produces works in us because God is at work in our lives. We see this type of faith in Mary, first last week in her submission to the word of God despite the consequences and now today as she goes to her cousin. It is this faithful obedience to God that He then blesses by making her the mother Jesus and it is that faithfulness that produces the last blessing of Elizabeth.

She believed in the fulfillment of God’s promises, and her faith produced in her obedience. Another way to say it is, the works she did proved the faith she had in God. Turn with me over to James chapter 2 and I will be reading verse 81-24.

James 2:18–24 “18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

One thing we have to clear really quick is that James uses the word justified differently than Paul, were Paul generally uses to mean you are in right standing before God, James uses it more as proof of that fact. If your faith is in Jesus, your faith should be proved by the works you produce or the fruit that is produced in your life. The most evident of those fruit is obedience as described here. Because of his faith Abraham Obeyed, because of her faith Mary obeyed and because of our faith we should obey.

Let us Pray

Song then baptism

Today we as body immediately get to live out two of the things in the sermon. We get to wonder at the fact that the Lord is working through us in the live of another and we get to witness that work as he is obedient in baptism. If you all haven’t noticed already, I am a bit different at times and here I might be especially so. But we are going to witness today one of the two ordinances given by Jesus, we will be witnessing Willie’s public proclamation that his old self has been buried in Jesus’s death and he has been raised to new life in Jesus. We do not believe there is anything magical happening nor is this act necessary for a person to be saved, but this is an act of public obedience to the one who died for him. However, beloved, we cannot overlook our responsibility to him either. Just as he is getting ready to make a public proclamation that he is part of the body of Christ, I would have us do the same for him.

Willie can you and your Dad please come forward. Willie I have heard your testimony and have heard the way God is at work in your life, but here before everyone can you tell us by what are you saved?

I have heard yours as well, can you just affirm what Willie said and that you have been baptised?

Brothers and Sisters Galatians 4:4–7 “4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

We are a family, we are connected to one another closer than mortal blood could ever be because we are adopted in to the family of God, and it cost the life of the Eternal creator of the universe to do that. Beloved I want us to affirm that we will love Him, at least to the best of our ability, as Christ has called us to. In John 13:34 Jesus said these words.

John 13:34 “34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Christ laid down His life for those he loved, we are to do the same for Willie, and for all those in the family of God. Will you commit to that? If you do say We will.

Willie and Dad can Get ready for the baptism

Matthew 28:18–20 “18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.””

Willie’s Dad: In obedience to the Great Commision, upon profession of your faith in Jesus Chris, I baptize you Willie Buddy, my child or my brother, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen or something similar is fine

Hebrews 5:9 “9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,”

Galatians 3:26–27 “26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Darrell L. Bock, Luke: 1:1–9:50, vol. 1, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1994), 137.