Humble Enough to Be Used

Transcript

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[0:00] Our sermon text this morning comes from Luke chapter 1. We're getting close to that famous Luke chapter 2 passage, but today it's from Luke chapter 1 verses 39 through 55. A few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. At the sound of Mary's greeting, Elizabeth's child leapt within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. Why am I so honored that the mother of my Lord should visit me? When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said. Amen. Mary responded, Oh, how my soul praises the Lord, how my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed.

[1:14] For the mighty one is holy and he has done great things for me. He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. His mighty arm has done tremendous things. He has scattered the proud and the haughty, he has brought down the princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, and he has sent the rich away with empty hands. He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful.

[1:43] For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his children forever. Humble Mary. We didn't read this verse today, but we did read it. Otherwise, the passage would have been very long. But it came just before our text, actually.

[2:05] When her whole life was turned upside down, she accepted it. And she simply said, I am the Lord's servant, which is powerful. I think as much as I love all of you and as much as I love myself, I think if the Lord came to you and said, or me, and said, you're going to have the great honor of carrying my son, I'd be like, I'd be a little full of it. I really would. I'd be like, I must be special. But Mary wasn't. She said, I am the Lord's servant. And only a few verses before that, Zechariah, this great religious leader who had reason, maybe, perhaps to be a little full of himself, because Israel was a great place for him. And when Israel looked to him for guidance, he was. And he was a little full of himself. And he doubted God.

[3:06] He became a little too high in his place, and he doubted God. That doesn't mean Zechariah is a bad person. It's just interesting that Mary, this humble girl who no one looked at twice because she was from a poor family, she was nobody. She said, I am the Lord's servant. And he said, you don't have to be a servant.

[3:31] Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Now our text today picks up where Elizabeth enters the scene. And Zechariah's wife, Elizabeth, was pregnant herself with John the Baptist. And she recognized that Mary is blessed.

[4:05] Perhaps she sees a difference between Mary and her husband Zechariah. Mary is blessed not only for her status as the mother of the coming Messiah, but also for what she did, for her trust in God. She trusted in God's promise. Our English translations don't allow us to fully appreciate the fact that Elizabeth uses more than one word for blessed. Our translations only use blessed all the way through. But when Elizabeth says that Mary is blessed among women and proclaims that Mary's womb is blessed. She uses the church eulogiamne.

[4:51] And that means, Wendy, if I got that wrong, you can correct it. That's just my best pronunciation. And Hans-Erik isn't here to correct me, so we're going to say that's the correct pronunciation. And it means that both the present generations and the future generations are going to praise her and speak well of her and her child. But when she says, blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord, she uses the word makaria. And the same term that Jesus uses in the Beatitudes when he said, blessed are those who... So that term might as well be translated happy. Happy is she who believes. So these are two different words here. Mary is blessed because despite all expectations, her social status has been reversed. She will be honored rather than shamed for bearing this child. But she's also been blessed with divine joy because she's believed that God is able to do what God promises to do.

[6:12] Now Mary was so overwhelmed to be a part of God's plan. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? her life. Now what do we know about Mary at this point? She was pregnant. She was not married. We know she was a woman of great faith. We know that Joseph had planned to not marry her after finding out she was pregnant only until an angel came and told him he should. If you think our society is difficult for unmarried women or for single mothers, it's nothing compared to the society that Mary was in. If her future husband would have desired, he could have not just stopped the wedding, he could have had her killed. Joseph was being gracious by divorcing her in secret. We think that's hard on her, but he was saving her life.

[7:44] So, what do you think life was like for Mary? Every day walking around and dealing with the stares and the whispers of people, and some people that she considered lifelong friends whom she'd grown up with and loved, no longer associated with her. People would talk behind her back. People would talk in front of her face. And what do you think they said? Her child, her child is illegitimate. Now the Bible does not outright tell us that Mary's life was hard, but given her society we can gather that. We do see this a little later in Jesus's ministry, like in Mark chapter 6, where Jesus is teaching in his hometown and the people are not impressed with who he is and him speaking in what they think is out of turn. They're snidely saying, isn't this Mary's son? Now, for us that might not make that much of a difference. People say, isn't this Jenny's son or isn't this Ellen's daughter? But in that society that wouldn't have happened. It would have been the husband's son. It would have been...sorry, Katya, I made an example of you...it would have been...it would have been the husband's son. If that son had any honor at all, he was his father's son. son. The mother wasn't named. In the genealogies, there are very few mothers,

[9:18] there are very few females named for women in all of Jesus's genealogy, and only because it's the Bible, and the Bible actually quite honored women compared to the rest of society. A woman's lineage was not acknowledged, and so his hometown in this, isn't this Mary's son, was putting him down well into his adulthood. He had been established as an adult, as a carpenter for years before he started his ministry, and people in his hometown still saw him as Mary's illegitimate fatherless son. Now you can imagine that if it was that bad for Jesus, who was a man, who didn't do the sin that Mary was accused of, just imagine how bad it got for Mary. I honestly think the reason she went traveling to Elizabeth's house is probably because she was hiding. Not hiding in shame, but hiding until it passed over. The Bible tells us that she went to stay with her cousin Elizabeth, and chances are that she was there for her safety. Now possibly she just enjoyed her company. We can't prove that she was there for her safety, it's just a fairly safe assumption. But I will guess that Mary needed to get out of town and away from the insults and away from the possible violence that Mary was facing.

[11:02] She needed a break from the condemnation of who? Of fellow sinners, which is ironic because in this case Mary did nothing wrong and it was the sinners she needed a break from. All of this tells me though that Mary was strong and yet she was humble and somewhere in all of this she fell in love with God all the time. I would have no doubt that she would have been in the same situation over again. It would have been so easy to be angry at God for putting her in that circumstance, and yet she fell in love with God all over again, and she was honored to be part of his design. Luke 1 46 through 55 says, Oh how my soul praises the Lord, how my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he took notice of this lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the mighty one is holy and he has done great things for me. He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. His mighty arm has done tremendous things. He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent them to the poor. He has brought the poor to the poor. He has delivered the rich away with empty hands. He has helped his servant Israel

[12:28] and remembered to be merciful, for he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever'. God was able to do something great through Mary's humility and desired to be used through God's greatness and might. Mary worshiped God because of the fact that she was carrying God's Son. That's the first reason. because of the fact she was carrying God's son, she worshipped God. Mary says, my soul praises the Lord. Some texts say, my soul magnifies, or my soul glorifies, or my soul exalts. But the interesting thing about this is Mary is saying her spirit or her entire soul is a reflection of how good God has been to her. And from now on, when people look at her, they're going to see God's greatness because of what he has done in her life. And it's a major contrast to the treatment she got from humanity at the time that she lived, before the world knew how God had chosen her.

[13:39] For centuries, the people were waiting for the consolation of Israel. They were waiting for the one who would be sent to the kingdom of heaven to save them. They were waiting to make everything right. And after that last prophet had spoken in the Old Testament, there was about 400 years of silence. That's about 23 generations of silence. Born without a major prophet to tell them about Jesus. That's 17 generations had died without hearing a major voice.

[14:16] Now, I'm sure they had some, some little small town prophets, some of the faithful few who would speak about God, who would hear from God and speak about God. But no major voices to go before the kings, no major voices to stand up in front of the armies of Israel, no major voices to really lead, just small voices like God still speaks to the humble and to the small. Um, and yet, there, there Mary is after 400 years of silence. So since Jesus was born, we've had prominent people as ministers in every century for every generation, even during the middle and dark ages. And from the time of Jesus until now, we could name names of theologians that most people in church would recognize that a lot of, people outside of the church would recognize. Um, Martin Luther and Charlemagne and, and so on. Paul, uh, the Apostle Paul, uh, John Calvin, Billy Graham. I, I feel like you could name a lot more. Um, so since the time of Jesus, we've always had this option of having a spiritual guide to point us to God. But the people at the time of Mary didn't have that. They were living at a unique time in history, where it was just relatively silent. And so I can imagine she was simply terrified. But she gave God her consent.

[15:59] Even, even knowing how terrifying this would be, she gave God her consent. Um, because she knew the indescribable honor it would be to carry God's own son who would walk among men. The son who would give life. The son who is the promised Messiah. The son who would, would one day take on the sins of the world. So pain of the rejection of people, and fear of what was to become, come of her, that existed. But all at the same time, the joy she must have felt at carrying the one day, the one who would one day carry her. And of all the people that ever lived in time and history, Mary was chosen to carry the son of God. And so she worshiped God for it. But God also has something for us. If you want to experience the joy that Mary felt, God wants to offer it to you. He does offer it to you. He wants to use you, if you are humble enough to recognize his offer. If you are humble enough to recognize him reaching out to use you. If you are humble enough to recognize that great responsibility. Like Mary recognized it. He wants you to be pregnant with the message of the truth of Jesus. He wants you to be full of Jesus and his plan for, for the kingdom of God. He wants you to share the message of hope. He wants you to share healing with those who have been looking for it.

[17:39] But there was a key to this. And that was that Mary was humble enough to recognize the hand of God. In her life. She was humble enough to accept that maybe there would be temporary worldly discomfort. Maybe it would even be great. But she was humble enough to realize that it was nothing in comparison to the greatness of God's kingdom.

[18:05] Now Mary worshiped God because of the honor of carrying Jesus. What would it look like for you to humble yourself and worship God because of Jesus? Not because of anything great he has done in your life except through Jesus. So just the fact that God sent Jesus. What would it look like for you to humble yourself in worship?

[18:34] Now Mary also worshiped because she was being used by God. Mary worshiped because God was using her in an incredible way. She was excited about the possibilities and opportunities. She was committed to being who God wanted her to be first. And then allowing him to work in her life. And that was a life surrendered to God.

[19:02] Which allowed him to do so much more than we could have imagined. So God is in the business of people. He grows people. He loves people. He saved people. He loves people. And when we have a desire to make it count, he uses people in his plan.

[19:22] So all of us have, I think, a desire to make a difference. A desire to matter in the world. Our search for being significant or for significance in general and our search for the truth is not found in our stature or how much money we make or how many followers we have on social media. It's found in Jesus. And if you want to matter to your friends, you need to get right with Jesus first. And if you want to matter or be an influence to even your family, get right with Jesus first. And if you want to be helpful in your community, let Jesus in first.

[20:19] If you want to really make a difference in the kingdom and not just make a difference for the sake of people heaping praise on you, then you need to get in line with Jesus. Jesus matters. So for anyone who's not content with just drifting through life and for those who really want to make a difference in the world, for those who want lives to matter, that's why the Bible says when Jesus comes back, he's not going to rely on our works to tell the story. Lots of people can do good works. But he's going to determine whether we truly know him. And when you truly know Jesus, your works will reflect having him in your life. So God looked at Mary and saw she had a son. She had a desire to know him better. And he gave her something to do. It was because she knew God that she was able to make a difference.

[21:20] Mary worshiped because she was making a difference and being used by God. And I imagine that when Mary found out she was carrying God's child, she took it seriously. And maybe she had questions that no one else knew. But when God gives us a job, he expects us to take it seriously. And finally, Mary worshiped because God's strength and justice were enough for her.

[21:50] She was going to face tough times and she knew it. But she declared, The Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is his name. 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.

[22:23] Mary knew her history. She knew God's justice and provision had sustained his people for generations, for centuries, for generations, for time from the beginning of earth. She knew of his strength and his mercy, and she praised him for it. She also praised God for using the humble. And in 1 Corinthians 1, 27 to 28, it says, But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are. Christ came in humility, through humility, and continues to use the humble.

[23:17] So here's my charge to you this rest of this Advent season and into the new year. Can you be humble enough to accept the blessings of God in your life this Christmas? And what does that look like for you? Perhaps God is nudging you to humble yourself to examine where you have fallen short in your life lately. Or perhaps you are being called to be humble enough to ask for his help when your life is just missing something.

[23:50] Or maybe he's leading you to humble yourself enough to submit to him and let him heal you. Heal you from your past. Heal you from your hurts. Heal you from your losses. Will you be humble enough to stop and ask for his direction in your life? In those places where you insist that you're the one who knows the way?

[24:15] And will you be humble enough to worship him alongside Mary this season? Let's pray. Our God, you are good and you are mighty. And you are powerful and you are great. And before you we don't need to be anything but humble. We don't need to build ourselves up or make ourselves great because we can rely on your greatness to sustain us. God, we ask for humility this season. We ask that we would be humble and that you would do your work in and through us. These things we pray in Jesus' name.