December 12, 2004
Morning Worship
Text: Luke 1:46-48
Subject: Mary’s Song
Title: Changed By Grace
I have spent much time in recent weeks talking to you about the Holy Spirit. I believe that subsequent to salvation the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is the most important event in the life of a believer. He is our power source. He is our teacher. He is our Helper. When we think about the Holy Spirit we often think of the many signs and wonders performed by Jesus in the power of the Spirit and also how that same power for the miraculous is available to us.
But I want to share with you today about one of the works of the Spirit that we don’t often talk about, and that is change. When you are saved the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you – the book of Judges says it this way, Gideon became clothes for the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God…” and
2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold, all things become new.”
Now that is where I wanted to get us to today. If you have trusted Christ there is an element of change dwelling in you that affects every aspect of your life. The way you act, the way you think, the way you perceive spiritual things, and the way you use (or abuse) your body. When the Spirit of the Lord dwells in you, your entire being is changed. Then, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit amplifies the changes that are made in you.
As we continue in the season of giving I want to look more closely at Mary’s response to what God had done in her life, by His Spirit, and to use it as an example of how we are to respond to that same Spirit.
You should be singing the same song of grace.
I. MY SOUL MAGNIFIES THE LORD (46)
A. Defining the Terms. The "soul" is the "self" of man. It involves the mind, will, and emotions. The mind involves memory, reasoning, and imagination. The will is the volition of man where he makes decisions. The "emotions" is where man feels (example: joy, depression, anger, or fear). Magnify is the Greek word megaluno and it means to make great, to enlarge, to magnify, to increase, or to make conspicuous; to hold in high esteem. Now we know that there is nothing we can do to make God greater than He is or to enlarge Him. But we do hold Him in high esteem and in the process we can enlarge His territory. We also make Him conspicuous by the lives that we live. So when Mary says, “My soul magnifies the Lord” she is willing to make the necessary changes in order that in her mind, will and emotions she can bring attention to the reality of who God is.
B. God is Magnified In Response to His Word. Look back at verses 38 and 45. What is it that causes Mary to get to the point of magnifying God? She heard the word of God spoken to her by and angel and she accepted it. “Let it be to me according to your word” (rhema – utterance). And Elizabeth confirms this in verse 45 when she says, “Blessed is she who believed…” The word “believe” means to have faith in or to entrust, especially with one’s spiritual well being; to be fully persuaded. So Mary went from, “OK, let it happen as You say…” to being fully persuaded that God’s word is true and allowing it to come to pass in her life. Sometimes we know the word of God and say we believe it but we resist giving in to it. It may be that we are afraid of being embarrassed or are shy, but Mary, a Jewish girl, probably in her early teens, didn’t let that stop her. She knew the Law and the Prophets. In her song she quotes the Old Testament 12 times. You see, when the Spirit of God came on her she started spouting scripture and glorifying God. Remember when I said that the soul is mind, emotion and will? What Mary is asked to do would totally contradict what the mind would say is possible. As a matter of fact she questioned it back in verse 34 “How can this be?” But that didn’t stop her from giving her will and emotions over to God.
C. God is Magnified in the Evidence of His Actions. Verse 49 tells us that God has made His relationship with Mary a personal one. “For He who is mighty has done great things for me…” We sing that old chorus, “I love Him, I love Him, because He first loved me, and purchased my salvation on Calvary’s tree.” If you stop and consider that God, in His infinite wisdom, has always made the first move toward you, you just have to be in awe of His wisdom. Romans 5:6, “For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.” You know, all God’s promises are that way. We often think, “Well, God will save someone in His own time” or “He will heal in His own time” or “He will provide when the time is right.” Well, no, the scriptures say that those things have already been done. While many are seeking to find ways to get God to save, baptize in the Holy Spirit, heal, or provide, He is trying to figure out how to get them to receive it. It’s already done for the glory of His name. I don’t know if you have ever played ping-pong or tennis, but there is a spiritual application I want to make with natural illustrations. Somebody serves. The other person returns the serve. The server hits it back and so on. God’s work of salvation, healing, provision, blessing has already been served. Now it’s your turn to do something with it. Receive the serve and put it back in God’s court. For every person who has trusted Christ as their Savior, God makes His works on your behalf personal. And He is glorified because of it.
D. God is Magnified in the Understanding of His Nature. Let’s look at some of the qualities that Mary attributes to the Lord. 1) Holy is His name. The translation of the Greek says that God is physically pure and morally blameless. The Amplified Bible says here that, “holy is His name [to be venerated in His purity, majesty, and glory].” 2) God gives mercy to those who fear Him. God’s mercy extends to all who would turn to Him (from generation to generation) No one is excluded. 3) He is concerned about the lowly. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled…” verse 53 says, “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away.” He is holy, caring, merciful, and just. Understanding by these verses that God is active in the lives of those He has created will help others see Him and exalt His name.
II. MY SPIRIT HAS REJOICED IN GOD MY SAVIOR. (47)
A. The Spirit of Man. What is the spirit of a man? In order to really understand what Mary is saying we need to define “spirit”. Man’s spirit is the lifeblood of his inner being. It is what is on the inside that knows him better than he knows himself (I’m talking about intellectual knowledge – soul). It is your heart. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” It is the inner part that knows your thoughts, your motives, and your desires. Your spirit is your inner man. It is in this inner man where the sin nature dwells. Now this spirit of man is destined to death in the spiritual realm. Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 2:9-12, “But as it is written, ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him’. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him. Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” Before we trusted Christ, our spirits could only know what was in us. We were spiritually dead, but as soon as Jesus comes into our lives He teaches us the things of God so we can know the things that God has in store for us. “The Spirit bears witness to our spirits that we are children of God.” Our spirits are alive in Christ and now we are able to know in our minds and intellect the things that God has in store for us as well as the inner thoughts, motives and weaknesses that dwell deep within.
B. God’s Spirit. We know about the Holy Spirit. He is a person, the third person of the Godhead. He teaches, He convicts of sin, He comforts, He is our counselor – our parakletos - one who walks alongside us. He guides us into all truth. He brings to remembrance all the words that Jesus said. He has all the attributes of the mind, will, and feeling. He has a relationship with humanity: He can be grieved, lied to and blasphemed. He is the source of power for individuals and is the operational power in the church till Jesus comes. All this brings us to what has happened in the life of Mary. She was a God – fearing Jew when the angel came to her. She relented to God’s word. The Holy Spirit “overshadowed her” and implanted God’s seed to be the Savior of the world. And that same Holy Spirit touched her spirit and brought her to eternal life. She was justified by faith.
C. Rejoicing in the Spirit. Mary recognizes her need for a Savior and rejoices in the fact that she has one. Her spirit rejoices because of what I have just spoken to you. She has received spiritual life and enlightenment. The veil has been lifted. She is being changed from glory to glory into His image. The word that is translated rejoiced literally means to jump for joy. That is what John the Baptist did in his mother’s womb when Mary came to visit. The Holy Spirit’s work of enlightenment will cause you to rejoice as you begin to understand more and more who you are through the blood of Christ.
III. THE LOWLY STATE OF HUMANNESS. (48)
A. Sin Nature. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” Philippians 2:7 tells us that, “He made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men…” The one redeeming factor about mankind is that God created us and desired to have fellowship with us, so he made a way for us to be saved. The writer of Hebrews questioned this very fact when he quoted the O.T., “What is man that your are mindful of him, or the son of man that you take care of him?”
B. Mary’s Place in Society. Mary did not consider herself to be worthy of God’s choosing. She wasn’t from the richest family. She didn’t attend all the right schools. She was never invited to all the high society functions. But she had something that not many in those arenas have. She had the heart of a servant. Even though Mary confessed her human failings, she also recognized who she was in the Lord. In verse 55 she said that God spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed. Romans 9:8 says that, ”those who are children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as seed.” In spite of our lowly nature, God continues to speak to us.
Mary considered herself to be blessed. She was not blessed by God to carry His Son because she was the model Christian. She was blessed because she was chosen. Out of all the billions of people that have lived on earth and the billions more that will come, Mary was the one that God chose. Was Mary sinless? She recognized her sinfulness and her own need for a Savior. Mary was a little girl who had faith enough to trust the word of God. And she was changed forever by that word. The Holy Spirit brought change into her life. She went from doubting, “How can that be?” to trusting, “let it be to me according to your word.” to being changed in body, soul and spirit.
“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”
Can you say that today? Are you changed? Have you committed yourself to the Lord” Are you changed in spirit? Are you changed in your understanding of spiritual things? The bible says that as a man thinks in his heart so he is.
What do we learn from Mary? Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when I told you about the great advice that Mary gave concerning our response to Jesus, “Whatever He says to do, do it”? Mary didn’t tell us to do anything she wasn’t willing to do. She was a doer of the word.
Where the Sprit of the Lord is there is liberty and where there is liberty, there is change.
Allow the Spirit to be the agent of change in your life today.
