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Text: Luke 1:28-56
Divine opinion (vss 28-30)
- …highly favored…favor with God…
- It’s apparent from the scripture that favor with God is not like winning the lottery. There are no elements of luck or randomness or chance. The LORD doesn’t favor people by accident and neither do you. When He finds people willing to pay the price for truth and righteousness, and people who love the LORD, He finds a vessel ready to receive heavenly blessings.
- You’re not given many facts about Mary’s life before this divine assignment that will make her the most famous woman in history. You’re just given God’s opinion about her life up to this point. She’s highly favored by God. Mary’s life has been so faithful that the LORD is willing to entrust her with bearing the child who is the only begotten Son of God.
- Mary honored the LORD with her purity. By that I mean she honored the LORD with her body. And she honored the LORD with her desires. Sometimes your own desires prevent the LORD from blessing you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded … Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Instead of chasing my lusts and desire, let me go after God’s desires. Let me yield my own ambitions to Him and let Him promote me.
- She honored the LORD through her obedience to God’s law. Mary keeps the law. She is a soul living in an unholy body keeping the law of God.
How the word of God works (vss 38, 45)
- The angel explains to Mary how this pregnancy is going to take place. Mary believes God. Notice in verse 38 Mary says, be it unto me according to thy word. Elisabeth even testifies to Mary’s faith in verse 45, And blessed is she that believed.
- This is significant because it sets in motion this particular promise of God in Mary’s life. This is probably the conception of the Lord Jesus Christ in Mary. Notice immediately that Mary goes to see Elisabeth and evidently Mary is already pregnant. 1 Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
- Beware of the opposition that causes unbelief. In the parable of the sower, Jesus told you why the word of God fails to bear fruit in people’s lives.
- The heart isn’t prepared for God’s word, therefore distraction steals whatever divine opportunities exist. The birds come and eat the seed off the ground.
- In the second case, the person’s heart is unwilling to prioritize and separate from the world so the word of God cannot compete with the cares of this world.
- In the third case, a person seems excited on the surface, but the heart is secretly hard. And through disappointed expectations and even pressure that targets the work of the word of God it is revealed that the seed had no place to put a root down. In that case, the tribulation is not to make the seed grow, it is God’s method of destroying the seed that landed on a stony heart.
- Listen carefully. Your heart is your responsibility. Disappointment, bitterness, anger, malice, love, joy, peace, these are your responsibility. Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.
Mary’s spirit-filled response to God’s work in her life (vss 47-53)
- The LORD is magnified in her life
- Magnifying means something gets bigger in your view, it occupies more space in your life. Mary says, my soul doth magnify the LORD…
- Mary says something similar to what John the Baptist said, He must increase, but I must decrease.
- Magnifying means you find details that you didn’t see before.
- Some of you are finding that the LORD occupies less and less space in your life.
- …rejoiced in God my Savior…
- Mary has a savior. That’s important to know so you understand Mary is not a savior or a mediator. Mary needs a savior.
- Better yet, she rejoices in her savior! The joy of the LORD is my strength. The things that make God happy refresh my spirit and revive my life. I want to love what God loves!
- God regards her lowly estate b/c blessed are the poor in spirit (vss 48-50)
- If you think her statements about the poor and lowly are financial statements, it’s because you think everything is about money and money is your god. Mary is not giving you a family profit/loss statement, she is describing her spirit.
- James 4:6 …God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
- This is a truth through all of mankind’s relationship to his Creator. Elihu noted it in the book Job; a soul that would humble itself before God would find mercy with God. Abraham spoke of it. Moses talked about it. Ruth discovered it. David delighted in it. Isaiah preached the profundity of a Creator who lives high above all things that would be at home in a humble heart. In fact, all the prophets spoke of this truth. The LORD Jesus Christ embodied it. And his followers would live it.
- God rewards the humble and excludes the proud (vss 51-53)
- As unbelievers carried on their religion in their imagination the LORD was choosing humility and the poor in spirit. Those hungering and thirsting after righteousness go away filled, but those who say they are rich and have need of nothing get nothing.
- When is the last time you were broken over your sin? That’s poor in spirit and that’s what gets filled. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Jesus said, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive…
