Mary’s Song Pt. 1

I have already said this, but I love Christmas. Its my favorite time of the year. And I love the special Christmas songs that we have, which we call carols! When I was a little kid, I used to sing Christmas carols year round! In fact, I think that I can honestly say that I like Christmas Carols so much that i have actually risked my life to sing them!

In college, the ministry students at my school did a lot of work in a housing project called Attucks Court. Attucks Court was rough! When we would knock on doors, people would just assume that we were cops coming to arrest them! And we would then have to say NO NO NO, we just wanted to invite their kids to Bible club!

We used to lead a Bible club in the park for the kids on Sunday afternoons and I noticed that there were always these two men sitting in a yard across the street and they were so POPULAR! People kept stopping by to talk with them ALL DAY long! Wow, those guys must be really friendly! It took a couple of weeks before it was like “Oh now i know, these men are dealing drugs out of their yard! Right across from the playground!”

Well at Christmas time, this group of ministry students would go Christmas caroling in neighborhoods and hand out Bibles. We figured since our group was caroling in nice neighborhoods, we should also go caroling at Attucks Court too. I mean after all, whats the worst that could happen, singing Christmas carols in a project at night? So a group of twenty college kids, wearing polo shirts and sweaters showed up in the dark at Attucks Court and IMMEDIATELY a policeman shows up, and he is PANICKED!!!

He is like what are you guys doing here?

And we were like “We are here to Christmas carol!”

So his eyes get as big as dinner plates and he tries to scare us away. He said “YOU cant be here at Attucks Court! We had a murder here, just last night!”

Now I dont think he was being a Grinch!

I think he was thinking about his job! He could probably see the headlines ending his career “Christmas Caroling Turns into Massacre. Negligent police officer to blame.”

and we, with total trust in the Lord and the courage of invincible 19 years olds were like “Officer, its fine, we come here all the time. It will be great. Dont worry about it.”

So then we went Christmas caroling in the projects that night and we handed out Bibles and candy canes and God was good and used it for his purposes. And I can report that even though I might not do that again today, God was faithful and everyone made it out safely.

Today, for our sermon we are going to be looking at a Christmas carol. In fact, we are going to be looking at the very first Christmas song ever sung, the beautiful song of a teenage virgin, named Mary. Would you stand with me, and listen to Mary’s song from Luke 1:46-55?

Context: Now, in our story, Mary has already been visited by the Angel Gabriel, informing her that she will be the mother of Jesus. Since she was an unmarried at the time and since girls were married in their teen years, it is safe to assume that Mary was almost certainly still a teenager. She is now going to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who will be the mother of John the Baptist. It is at this point under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that Mary sings her song, which in many ways quotes the song of Hannah, found in 1 Samuel 2.

For many of the people in this room right now, your first experience with Christianity was with the Roman Catholic Church. In the Roman Catholic Church, Mary is very, very important. Because of that, I want to talk a little bit about how Protestants like us view Mary.

Put simply, we as Protestants see her as the virgin mother of Jesus. Mary is a magnificent example of faith and service to God. Because Mary responds humbly and completely to the Lord, many Christians have looked at her and seen the model of everything that a Christian is supposed to be. When the angel comes to her, Mary does not have excuses for why she cant serve, all she does is willingly submit to the will of the Lord and because of this, she is forever blessed!

And yet, because of the strong influence of Roman Catholic tradition, a lot of extra ideas about Mary are in our society that the Bible never teaches.

-There is nothing in the Bible that would lead us to believe that Mary was sinless. The Bible teaches that there has only ever been one sinless person, and that is Mary’s Son, Jesus.

-Also, Roman Catholic tradition teaches that Mary is in heaven, advocating for people like us. In this way, she is called names like the Mediatrix and the Queen of Heaven. The Bible teaches that even though Mary is significant, she is significant not because of who she is, but because she brings forth Jesus. He alone is the Redeemer and Mediator, and this role is not shared with anyone else because no one else is needed! .

Because we prioritize the Bible over any tradition, we as Protestants do not accept these unbiblical ideas about Mary, BUT, we still revere Mary’s incredible example and rejoice that she was used to bring our Lord into the world.

Mary’s song shows us how we should respond to God’s work in our lives.

Specifically, that we should respond as worshipers, overwhelmed by God’s goodness, and as servants, eager to accomplish his will and expand his Kingdom.

I. Mary, a worshiper vs. 46-47

Mary’s first line in the song is to say that her soul magnifies the Lord!

To magnify means to make something big and that is what she is doing from the depths of her soul, making much of God and what he has done for her! She is worshiping her Savior!

What is worship?

It is a huge concept so we can spend some time defining it.

-The response of the spirit to the Lord’s character and works

“Worship is the adoration of a redeemed people, occupied with God himself.” AW Pink

-In both Greek and Hebrew, the idea behind worship is one of bowing down. And when you bow down, you make yourself smaller, showing that the person in front of you is greater and more powerful than you are! John the Baptist demonstrated this earlier in Mark when he said of Jesus “I must decrease, he must increase!” And this is why Christian churches like ours have traditionally been built so tall! Its to help draw your gaze upwards to God, who is greater than you are!

Worship should be at the center of a believer’s life! To this point, many believers have long held that worship, the showing of devotion to God, is literally why we were created. Fish swim and birds fly and the stars shine because that is what God their Creator made them to do! And Christians worship, because that is why God has made us!

The Lord loves to be worshipped! Visions of the throne room of God from Isaiah and Revelation show him worshiped continually by choirs of angels and the people he has redeemed. In fact, worship is so central to who God is, that David writes in Psalm 22

Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

Kings sit and reign from thrones! When I lived in Russia, we would visit the palaces of the Russian Emperors all of the time. Their thrones were always huge chairs, covered with gold, with an eagle embroidered on the chair itself. This is where the Emperors exercised their authority!

And yet because worship is so important to him, the Psalmist says that our God exercises his kingship not on a chair, but lifted up high on the praises of his people.

We worship the Lord together as a community, when we gather together every Sunday to pray, to sing his praises, and to learn from his Word. But we also worship when we take the Lord’s Supper together and Baptize and proclaim the message of the Gospel that he has given us. But this is all public and communal!

As Christians we also worship the Lord in our private, daily lives.

Through prayer and reading his Word, and through giving of our time and our energy and our finances to further his Kingdom. When you sweep the floors of this building or volunteer with the children or spend hours in the kitchen, if done for the Lord, it is all an act of worship.

We worship the Lord through how we work, if we work with diligence and gratitude and joy, and we worship the Lord through how we treat other people in our lives, from the strangers we dont know to our own family members.

If the focus of our lives is on the Lord, then everything that we do can be an act of worship. And in this way, we fulfill what Paul writes in 1 Cor 10:31 about whatsoever we do, even eating and drinking, doing it all to the glory of the Lord.

Belmont, Mary’s song is an opportunity for all of us to consider how we respond to the work of the Lord in our lives. And if our response is not a response of grateful worship from the depths of our souls for all that he has done for us, then we need to look at the song of this teenage girl and take notes! Her life just got hugely complicated by God’s will for her, and yet here she, full of worship, magnifying the Lord!

But in addition to being a worshiper, Mary is also a

II. Mary, a servant vs. 48

Mary’s attitude is worth noting here. She describes herself realistically because she knows her humble estate she realizes that has not earned the Lord’s presence in her life, nor has she earned the right to be used by him by being the best human that ever lived or something like that. God’s presence in her life is completely undeserved, all of this is grace! Its all a gift, that a great and mighty God would use a poor peasant girl to bring forth the Redeemer of mankind. Mary will be the gate through which the King of Kings will enter into the world.

Mary is humble before the Lord because she knows that no human deserves his goodness! And Belmont, the same is true in our interactions with the Lord. Everything he has done for us is a gift. None of us deserve any of his mercy or any of his kindness, and we do not deserve to be used by him to expand his Kingdom. But because God is GOOD, he shows us grace, and gives us what we have not earned. Our God saves us, makes us his children, transforms us into the image of his Son, and then uses us for his purposes.

-Mary identifies herself as a servant of the Lord

When Mary is told by the angel that she will bear Jesus, she responds in the clearest, most selfless way possible. She calls herself the handmaiden or servant of the Lord and submits to God’s will for her life. Handmaiden and servant are two nice ways to say a word that we dont really like…the word is slave.

Mary is saying that she does not belong to herself. She is acknowledging that she belongs to the Lord and that he has total right to use her life in any way that he sees fit, even if it means its going to be hard for her. Mary was saying that her life, her desires, her preferences, and even her womb, were all at the disposal of the Lord. This girl is holding nothing back.

Our nature often pushes back at the idea of us being servants, we dont like it. Because we are sinners, we want to be the decision maker and the ultimate authority in our lives.

But Mary is humble, and instead of pushing back against being the Lord’s servant, she embraces it! Mary is not living for herself, she is living for the Lord and her delight is to serve him, no matter what that requires.

My friends we need to be like Mary, we should embrace the fact that we are the Lord’s servants. We should delight that he has chosen to use people like you and like me for his purposes, and that this is an honor that we should be excited about! So think about how you are serving.

Is it freely, with an open heart and open hands, giving everything back to the Lord. Or when he calls you to serve him is he always met with resistance? With excuses. With all the reasons why it should not be you who does this thing? Remember, God made you and saved you, and he has the right to use you for his purposes.

We are heading into a new year. So let me ask you, how did you serve the Lord in 2024? What changes can you make in 2025? How can you follow Mary’s example and give yourself more fully to the Lord in 2025, holding nothing back? What do you need to let go of, so that you can embrace serving the Lord?

III. The Lord, Mighty, Holy, and Merciful  vs. 49-50

Mary’s Song, which teaches us about worship and service, is also packed with theology. Theology that intersects beautifully with the Christmas season.

A. The Lord is Mighty vs 49-but done great things for her. This is extraordinary. Its one thing of course to say that God is all powerful, that he can do anything that we wants. But how marvelous is it that this teenage girl, can say that this mighty God has done good things for her?

When I think about the Lord’s strength, I think about nature. About the overwhelming forces that exist in our world. Of wind and heat and rain. Those hail storms that we had this summer. All of these can be truly overwhelmng! And yet, the Lord’s power is not like a thunderstorm or an earthquake, his power is guided by his character, and that is why this girl can say that the Mighty One has done something good…for her…personally. This is the nature of our God, Belmont, he is all things good, and he is equally all of these traits at the same time. He is all loving and all patient, in the same way that he is all powerful and all knowing.

He is the Mighty One, who does great things for his people! And he has done these great things for you and for me. And the most incredible truth, is that the Son of this mighty God, maker of the universe and he who upholds all things, would come to earth in the body of a little baby, the powerful becoming powerless, the Mighty One becoming vulnerable.

This is a mystery, but it is the mystery we celebrate at Christmas time! Truly, God has done great thing for us! But we also learn that

B. The Lord is Holy vs. 49 Holy is his name

We talk about the Lord’s holiness a lot, and this is how it should be! Because the Scripture is full of descriptions of God’s holiness. The witness of the Scripture teaches us that if there is one attribute of God’s character that regulates all of the others, it is his holiness. It means that all of the other aspects of his nature will only ever be used for good because our God is a holy God!

Fundamentally, God’s holiness means that he is totally separated from sin. That he can never do evil and that he has nothing to do with anything that is evil because it violates his perfect, sinless nature. Mary’s song helps us see that God is so perfect, that even his very name is holy!

And holiness, just like God’s power, would frighten and overwhelm us were not connected with the other perfections of God’s nature. We are sinners, and the holiness of God should consume us like an inferno!

But because God is loving and kind, in addition to being holy, rather than judging us and destroying us, this holy God enacts a plan to save us.

This again intersects with the beauty of Christmas, that the almighty God would become weak, and that the holy God would come to the sin-scarred wasteland that we made, as an infant. That he would never be infected by our sinfulness, but instead would live the perfect life we each have failed to live, in order to redeem us. Jesus, the holy Son of the Holy God, came and took our sins on himself, so that we could be forever set free, and in this, we see that he is also

C. The Lord is merciful vs. 50 Merciful to those who fear him

Mary describes the mercy of God. Mercy is defined as NOT getting the negative consequences that you deserve. And in addition to being completely powerful and perfectly sinless, Mary’s song teaches us that our God is also completely merciful. It delights our God to set prisoners free and to bring his enemies out of darkness and set them at his table, as his children. Our God is merciful in the extreme! As Psalm 103 says:

10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,

so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

13 As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

Ps 103:10–13.

But as our worship team comes up. I want you to notice in the song who the Lord’s mercy is for. It is not for everyone. It is for those who fear him.

Fearing God, at its most simple, means to do what God says. To fear God is to respect him enough to listen to him!

If you are here, listening to the sound of my voice, then I want you to know that that God is merciful, but that his mercy is not some disembodied force. His mercy comes to us in the form of a single person. His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. If you want to experience this overwhelming mercy of God, and have all of your sins taken away and be added forever to the Lord’s family, given a new identity and a new purpose, then you MUST COME to the Lord on his terms. You must fear God enough to do what he says. And this is God’s message for you!

That we have all turned aside from the path of goodness and truth, and followed after evil and after lies. The Bible says that all of us, like sheep, have gone astray from the Lord. Every single person in here, and every single person who has ever lived outside of Jesus, are sinful, and cut off from the Lord without his mercy.

And the price for this sinful behavior is death and judgment and eternal punishment in the fires of hell. But this again is the beauty of Christmas and this is why we sing JOY TO THE WORLD! God did not will for us to be lost forever under his judgement. Instead, he sent his Son to suffer and die in our place. And his message for you today is to turn away from your life of sin and rebellion, and put all of your trust in Jesus Christ his Son, who died on the cross and then rose again after three days. Do this! And become like Mary, a worshiper and servant of God for the rest of your life!

Would you pray with me?

Benediction: 2 John 3