Luke 1:46-55 - Meditations on the Magnificat

MEDITATIONS ON THE MAGNIFICAT

James A. Long, Jr.

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Bethlehem Christian School Chapel

Passage

Luke 1:46–55 ESV

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

Message Introduction

For so many people Christmas is a time of great despair and depression.

Many are suffering from

Loneliness

– For people without a significant other, who don’t have family or who live far from family, the holidays can be especially tough. While longing for company, lonely people may isolate even more leaving them feeling even worse.

Loss

– If you’re dealing with the loss of a loved one, the idea of experiencing happiness during the holidays might make you feel guilty or disrespectful to the memory of that person.

Hurts

Broken dream

– Memories and traditions are a big part of the holidays. If your current life circumstances aren’t the best, you may get stuck longing for the happier times in the past at the expense of the present.

Many people make Christmas about

People

Presents

Profits

Parties

The holiday season for most people is a fun time of the year filled with parties, celebrations, and social gatherings with family and friends. For many people, it is a time filled with sadness, self-reflection, loneliness, and anxiety.

What causes holiday blues?

Sadness is a truly personal feeling. What makes one person feel sad may not affect another person. Typical sources of holiday sadness include:

Stress

Fatigue

Unrealistic expectations

Over-commercialization

Financial stress

The inability to be with one's family and friends

Context

Elizabeth

a. Old…Barren…Cursed

The Visitation

a. The mothers: Elizabeth Mary

i. Both lowly,

ii. trusting in the promises of God,

iii. visited by an angel ,

iv. chosen to bear children of promise,

v. first to know that the savior had come

b. The sons

i. John the Baptist: the last and greatest of the old testament prophets

ii. Jesus : the Lord of the new covenant

c. The praise

i. The baby leaps

1. Joy in Christ in the Presence of Christ

2. Babies in the womb know and feel and have personhood

ii. Elizabeth praised

1. She shouted…Filled with the Holy Spirit…Praised God

2. Blessed

a. Among women

b. The fruit of your womb

c. The faith of God

i. After 400 years of silence “out of the darkness comes light”

Mary

a. Cruel insinuations

b. Scandalized character

c. Judgment of others

d. Great dishonor

e. Suspicions of Joseph

f. Throughout her life

i. Jesus …At least we know who our father is

How would we respond?

i. Unbelief

ii. Fear

iii. Anger

iv. Control

v. Discouragement

vi. Discontentment

vii. Dissatisfaction

viii. Distraught

h. How did Mary respond?

i. She sang

ii. She trusted

iii. She praised…She worshiped

Message Exposition

Christmas is about PRAISE (Luke 1)

PRAISE must be Personal

– vss. 46–47; Psalm 103:1–5 (“my soul,” “my spirit”)

PRAISE must be Passionate

– vss. 46–47 (“magnifies,” “rejoices”) – Mary’s entire being is caught up in praise to God

PRAISE must be in Proper Perspective

– vs. 48 (“humble estate,” “servant”)

PRAISE must be Practiced and Perceptive

(habitual, way or manner of life) – see Hannah’s prayer – 1 Samuel 2:1–10

She knew the Word; she loved the Word; she lived the Word

When she was pressed from the outside, what came out of her was the word and the gospel

It poured out of her life

Christmas is about a PERSON: God

(“magnifies the Lord,” “rejoices in God”)

He Sees

– vs. 48; Philippians 2:5–11 (He looked on her and He came down to her)

she is not queen

she is no co-redemtrix

she is not perfect

He is Sovereign

His Might

– vss. 49, 51 (He has done great things)

His Holiness

– vs. 49 (“Holy is His name”)

only characteristic of God raised to the thrid degree

God’s Holiness

1. Holiness – His infinite moral purity. It means “separate”. He is eternally separated from any degree of sin. He does not sin Himself and cannot abide or condone sin in His moral creatures.

2. God’s holiness responds to sin with immutable and eternal hatred. God hates sin. (Psalm 5:5; 7:11)

3. The cross is an expression of God’s wrath towards sin as well as His love to us.

4. It expresses His holiness in His determination to punish sin, even at the cost of His Son. And it expressed His love in sending His Son to bear the punishment we so justly deserved.

5. Why the Cross? We must say God’s holiness demanded it as punishment for ours sins and God’s love provided it to save us from our sins.

6. It is only against the dark backdrop of our sinfulness that we see the glory of the Cross shining forth in all it brilliance and splendor.

Christmas is about a PROCLAMATION

You need a savior

The Bad News

His Judgment

– vss. 51–53 (He brings down the proud and exalts the humble)

Adam’s sin

1. We can never understand the cross until we begin to understand something of the nature and depth of sin.

2. Test of obedience

3. Abstention from the forbidden fruit involved no hardship, no inconvenience, just simple obedience.

4. Satan questioned God’s truthfulness and goodness. Eve capitulated and so did Adam.

5. Disobedience and the consequent loss of God’s moral image is known as the Fall

6. It resulted in guilt, but also moral depravity or corruption.

7. Now his will which was totally responsive to God’s will, before the Fall, was now biased towards evil.

8. The persistent bent to evil is called original sin. This is an internal drive rooted in perversity.

9. God has appointed Adam as the federal head or legal representative of the entire human race. Consequently, his fall brought guilt and depravity on all of his descendants. In a sense, what he did, we did. (Romans 5:12, 18-19)

Our Sin

1. Since we all have a corrupt nature, we aggravate our condition by our own individual sins. Everyday we sin, both consciously and unconsciously, both willfully and unintentionally.

2. Christian tend to abstain from the grosser sins of society, but beneath the surface of our lives we tolerate all kinds of “refined” sins such as selfishness, covetousness, pride, resentments, envy, jealousy, self-righteousness, and a critical sprit towards others.

3. Matthew 22:37-39 – Love God and Love others – what does that mean?

4. We need to call sin what the Bible call sin and stop softening it with modern expression borrowed from our culture.

5. Our fallen sinful nature affects all that we do. Our very best deeds are stained with sin.

6. Because of this our acts of obedience fall short of perfection. They are filthy rag (Isaiah 64:6) when it compares to the righteousness that God’s Law requires.

7. Deeply infected with sin

8. Ezra 9:6 – “our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to heaven.”

9. Many people erroneously think that God forgives our sins because He is a loving God.

The Good News

He Saves - grace, kindness, mercy

His Mercy – vs. 50 (His mercy goes on from generation to generation)

True Worship must be Gospel–Centered (“rejoices in God my Savior”

He Satisfies

He fills the hungry…He provides for the poor

ii. Physically (filled the hungry) spiritually (filled with God)

iii. We need…Are the hungry, thirsty, craving Christ like the hungry, thirsty, craves physically?

He Secures (Luke 1:54-55)

His Faithfulness – vss. 54–55 (God keeps His promises to His people)

1. God does not lie

2. God never stretch the truth

3. God never backtracks

4. God never rethinks

5. God never needs do over

6. God never fails

Obedience

1. There are times when our inward desires do not match our outward conduct. We acts very proper on the outside, but sin in our hearts.

2. We must remember that God delight only in perfect obedience.

3. Active and Passive Obedience

a. Jesus not only died for us, He also lived for us

b. Sin violated God’s justice, aroused His wrath, stirred up enmity and brought us under a curse. It resulted in our becoming spiritually dead, in bondage to Satan and under the dominion of sin (Eph 2:1-3)

c. As our representative, Jesus assumed our obligation to perfectly obey the Law of God and fulfill it completely (Active Obedience)

d. Then He assumed our liability for disobedience and paid that liability to the full (Passive Obedience)

e. Federal headship – in Christ, in Him, in the Lord. Union with Christ means that in a spiritual yet real way we are united with Christ, both legally and vitally.

f. Adam’s sin charged to us

g. Jesus righteousness credited to us

h. God see you clothed in perfect, sinless obedience of His Son.

Justice Satisfied

1. God’s justice is certain

2. God’s justice is inflexible

3. God’s justice always prevails.

4. All sin without exception must be punished.

5. God cannot exalt one of His attributes such as mercy at the expense of another of His attributes like justice.

6. The death of Jesus was a complete and full satisfaction of divine justice for all who trust in Him. At the cross there is no tension between justice and mercy, instead, they meet in full harmony.

7. Only God’s infinite wisdom and superabundant love could devise such a plan that both satisfies His justice and meets our desperate need for mercy.

IN CHRIST

YOU HAVE BEEN RANSOMED, RECONCILED, RIGHT STANDING WITH GOD

7. Closing: When Christmas is held in proper focus it will result in Gratitude, Love, and Service – vs. 56 (Luke 7:36–50; 18:9–14; 19:1–10)

a. When you see the

i. God of judgement

ii. God of mercy

b. “We fail to see the gospel as the solution to our greatest problem – our guilt, condemnation, and alienation from God. Beyond that we fail to see it as the basis of our day-to-day acceptance with Him.”

c. “We can begin each day with the deeply encouraging realization that I am accepted by God, not on the basis of my personal performance, but on the basis of the infinitely perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.”

d. “The gospel tells us that Jesus Christ paid our debt, but it tells us far more. It tells us that we are no longer enemies and objects of His wrath. We are now His sons and daughters, heirs with Jesus Christ of all His unsearchable riches.”

e. Guilt (deep conviction of sin) Grace (assurance of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness)  Gratitude (respond in genuine gratitude, loving adoration, and sacrificial service)

8. Summary

a. God is at work in our lives even when it goes against our plans and our desires

b. God exalts the humble and He humbles the proud

c. God works individually , with the group, and the world

d. God satisfies only those who were hungry for Him

e. Real worship is not only external but internal

f. Praise is not emotionalism.

i. To be saturated with the Word of God but also

ii. of magnification of the Person of God

g. We are faithless yet God remains faithful

h. Let it be said of us that the Lord is our passion

i. Is that your God today?

j. Can you sing with Mary today?

k. Is that your passion today?

l. Are you magnifying the wrong things today?

m. Are you seeking to fill your hunger with the wrong things today?

n. Turn your eyes upon Jesus look full in his wonderful face and the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his Glory in grace

Life Group Discussion Guide

(For the week of December 3 2011)

QUICK REVIEW: As you heard the message this past Sunday, what one thing particularly caught your attention or challenged you?

DIGGING DEEPER into this theme of contentment: Philippians 4:1-13

1. Initially take some time to read Philippians 4:1–13. List some of the commands in this section, which serve as a foundation for living in contentment.

2. Was contentment something that came to Paul naturally or was it something he had to learn? - Philippians 4:11b-12

3. What was the "key" to Paul's contentment? – Philippians 4:13 (also see Philippians 1:21-24 and 1 Timothy 6:6–8)

DIGGING DEEPER into this theme of worship: Luke 1:46-56

REFLECT

What are some things for which we can we thank and praise God?

REVIEW:

1. What are some of the things Mary praises God for?

2. What does it mean to magnify the Lord?

3. What does it mean to fear God? How do mercy and fear go together in verse 50?

4. Mary’s anthem had many things in it which also were in Hannah’s prayer of praise when she brought Samuel to “the house of the Lord in Shiloh” (1 Samuel 1:24). This says Mary was well acquainted with Scripture. Compare Hannah’s praise in 1 Samuel 2:1-10 and Mary’s anthem in Luke 1:46-56. Note some significant comparisons.

5. What is the significance of verse 54-55?

TAKING IT HOME: PERSONAL RESPONSES

1. What do you hunger for? Are you finding your contentment and filling in Jesus?

2. Make a list of the things that give you the most joy and satisfaction in life. Now number the list, with number one being the thing that gives you the most joy. Be honest. Is worship of and fellowship with God at the top of the list?

3. List some of the precious promises of God that brings you the most peace. How can you become intentional in meditating on these promises?

4. Write a poem or song that expresses your heart toward Jesus. (as a group or individually)