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Luke 1:50-53
A Mother’s Song: God is Mighty for Us
/And Mary said… /
/“His mercy extends to those who fear Him, /
/from generation to generation.
/
/He has performed mighty deeds with His arm; /
/He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
/
/He has brought down rulers from their thrones /
/but has lifted up the humble.
/
/He has filled the hungry with good things /
/but has sent the rich away empty.”/
/One generation will commend Your works to another; /
/they will tell of Your mighty acts.
/
/They will speak of the glorious splendour of Your majesty, /
/and I will meditate on Your wonderful works.
/
/They will tell of the power of Your awesome works, /
/and I will proclaim Your great deeds/.
[*Psalm 145:4-6*]
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he Psalmist speaks of God’s might as something which every saint should know.
How would this generation … this church … commend God’s works to another?
What would we say?
Would we relate the glorious stories from the historical accounts of the Word of God? Or would we tell what mighty deeds God has done for us in our day?
What do we know of the glorious splendour of His majesty?
Is His majesty a misty concept which we can describe with the help of an analytical concordance?
Or do we know personally the glory of the presence of the Living God in our midst?
What can we tell of His wonderful works?
When did we last see the power of His awesome works?
When did we last witness His great deeds?
I rather suspect that this Psalm condemns us because we have not sought His presence and His might, for though we know of His mighty acts, they are a distant story and not a present experience.
Mary, however, spoke of great things done for her and before her by God.
She spoke of mighty deeds performed with His arm and of how He had scattered the proud, brought down rulers and sent the rich away empty handed.
Perhaps God does more in our presence than we realise.
Perhaps God is more active than we sometimes perceive.
I recommend that we would benefit from seeing the might of God through Mary’s eyes.
God’s Might is Extended to Those Who Fear Him — If I do not see the might of God revealed in my life it may well be because I do not fear Him. Mary speaks of God’s mercy being extended to those who fear Him.
Segueing into consideration of His might appears quite natural, and Mary’s song would lead us to expect that divine mercy and the might of God are somehow interrelated.
In some fashion God reveals His mercy to those who witness His might; and mercy is extended those who fear Him.
Likewise, we would conclude that His might is revealed to those who fear Him.
In the dark description of fallen man which Paul provides in *Romans 3:10-18* it is likely significant that he concludes with a quote from the *36th Psalm*.
The damning statement against wicked man is that there is no fear of God before their eyes [*Romans 3:18*].
In the eyes of man it is of no great consequence whether we hold God in awe or whether we fail to fear Him.
Seldom have any of us had the experience of trembling before God.
If the churches of this day are not much moved to hold God in awe, should we be surprised if the world about us is casual in its response to the Person of the Living God?
Perhaps one reason that we are not motivated by holy fear is that we are uncertain what is meant by *fear*.
May I suggest that the word *fear* means essentially what it says.
Indeed we should come boldly before the throne of grace and we should know that in Christ we are accepted as dearly loved children of God.
There must always remain the lingering knowledge that we are dealing with a God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise and ever-present.
We can only describe Him as *Other*.
He is not like us; rather His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are so far beyond our thoughts that we cannot compare ourselves to Him.
Thus, we know that God is to be held in awe.
His grace is awesome.
We cannot understand how holy God would delight to call sinful man to life in Himself.
His love is awesome.
We cannot understand how this God of love could concern Himself with our rebel race.
His mercy is awesome.
Who could conceive of forgiveness as we have received from God for such terrible transgressions?
His might is awesome.
He called all things into being and defeated sin and has made a way for us into the most holy place through the blood of His Son.
Our God is awesome.
The condemnation of the race is not that we fail to recognise that God is awesome, but that we fail to hold Him in awe.
Let me explain.
Intellectually we know that God is mighty.
With our mind we can rationalise that God must be awesome in might and power.
We witness the might of a prairie storm, the power of a raging river, the strength of one of God’s powerful creatures such as a grizzly bear … all these are evidence of His might and power.
In this park we can on any day see the majesty of the mountains and all the glories of high meadows and alpine lakes and we know that God must be a powerful Entity.
If we pause to reflect on the connection between God’s creation and His might, we are convinced that God must be a God of might and power.
Somehow the intellectual acceptance of His might fails to move us to holy fear.
Our knowledge fails to induce us to hold God in fear … to experience the overwhelming sense of awe at the presence of such a God.
Consequently we are able to go to church, conduct the liturgy of the service without ever permitting ourselves to be moved by His presence.
That this God has performed mighty acts is evident and we would each give assent to that fact.
That this same God is ever present with us as we worship is also acknowledged, but we fail to make the transition from intellectual knowledge to the plane of the personal.
Thus we fail to experience what it is to be lost in awe before Him.
We are confident that we worship, but seldom are we able to say that we have ever been lost in wonder and admiration before Him.
The concept of holding God in awe is foreign to our experience.
In the *33rd Psalm* is a description of God’s might which encourages all peoples to revere Him as God.
/By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, /
/their starry host by the breath of His mouth.
/
/He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; /
/He puts the deep into storehouses.
/
/Let all the earth fear the LORD; /
/let all the people of the world revere Him.
/
/For He spoke, and it came to be; /
/He commanded, and it stood firm/.
[*Psalm 33:6-9*]
The Psalmist says the peoples of the earth are to fear the wonders of God [*Psalm 65:8*].
He says the flesh should tremble in fear of God and that one should stand in awe of His laws … in fact, the heart should tremble before God’s Word [*Psalm 119:120, 161*].
Because man does not now hold God in awe does not mean that this situation will persist, for the day is coming when the people of Israel will stand in awe of Him [*Isaiah 29:23*].
Jeremiah spoke of Jerusalem in awe of the good which God would do for the city [*Jeremiah 33:9*].
God condemns the priests in the days of Malachi because they failed to stand in awe of His Name as did Levi [*Malachi 2:5*].
Certainly I would take from these ancient words of instruction that to fail to revere the Lord, to fail to hold His Name in fear, to fail to be in awe before Him invites censure too dreadful to contemplate.
For the sake of our meditation during this hour, I suggest that we would do well to consider the fact that we know little experientially of God’s might because we do not fear Him.
Perhaps the reason we do not fear Him is that we fail to invest time in His presence preparing for worship.
Perhaps the reason we do not invest time in His presence in preparation for worship is that we are quite unwilling to surrender control of our own lives to Him.
Perhaps the reason we are quite unwilling to surrender control of our own lives to Him is because we are endeavouring to have the best of both worlds.
We think of His salvation as a cheap fire insurance policy and we can also hold onto the baubles of this world so that we need not suffer deprivation now or in the future.
If such a challenge is insulting to you, weigh the message.
If you indeed hold God in awe you will not be insulted by a challenge to do the very thing you are now doing.
If, on the other hand, you are guilty of playing church and pretending to worship, let the challenge move you to holy fear.
Should you react with inner anger or a sense of rage it is mute evidence that you have yet to fear God.
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