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As you, if you’re visiting, if you’re open, open up your Bible, please. Do keep them open. So we do a style of preaching here called expository preaching. So I’m going to read through the passage, I’m going to pray, and then we’re going to spend the sermon just going back through the text. And I’m just doing my best to communicate to you what the scripture is saying.
So, as I said, keep your Bibles open, please, throughout this sermon. So let me read the sacred text and then I will pray. So Luke 1, starting in verse 46, this is what God’s word says. 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’s shown strength with his arms. He has scattered the proud in their thoughts of their hearts.
He’s brought down the mighty from their thrones. He 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 and spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever.
And Mary remained with her about three months and return to her home. Okay, so that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? Okay, God, thank you for your word. And Lord, as we just sung, I would continue to pray that you would speak, Lord.
Please speak, oh Lord, to us this morning through your word. Please help me to be a good communicator. Help me to communicate that which is true. Please help this congregation be good listeners. And Lord, we do pray that you take your word and plant it deep in our hearts.
Pray song in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, so two family stories for you to start this time. So the first relates to one of my kids. I’m not gonna say which one, but if you know my family, I’ll give you some clues.
So she’s in college, she lives in Green Bay, and she’s the oldest of our kids. Okay, that’s your clues. Now the story I’ll tell you about this naming child, it’s kind of a common story for children as they get older and listening to music that parents are worried that they’re listening to and maybe not approve of. So it’s a common story there, but not Common where the story is about to go. Okay, now, before we get to the story, let me give a little backstory to help set things up for this story.
So, as a family, we love all things related to Christmas. So if you come over to my house around Christmas, you can see a glorious light display, like, all over our house in ways that our house just, like, lights up our neighborhood. If you’re familiar with the old movie Christmas Vacation. So my neighbors referred to me as Clark, and they referred to my son Elijah, call him Rusty, which are names that both of us wear as a badge of honor. So in addition to our light display, which is glorious as a family, we also have tons of traditions that kind of run throughout the Christmas season.
So we just call these, like, our Advent activities. And these Advent activities include, like, reading scripture, followed by some type of, like, Christmas shenanigans. And these Advent activities, they really are an important thing to us and as a family. Also, starting the day after Thanksgiving, which is going to be important information for the story I’m about to share with this child that remained nameless. So starting the day after Thanksgiving, if you come to our house, Christmas music is played throughout the house, like, all day.
And the reason why we wait to blasting Christmas music all day till the day after Thanksgiving is because as a family, we also love Thanksgiving. So as excited as we are for Christmas, we don’t want to skip over Thanksgiving, want to experience that as well. Okay, now back to the story of one of my kids. So there we were, and this is during the time when this nameless child was maybe around the age of middle school, and this child was in her room with the door shut. And my wife, Tia and I heard some music kind of softly coming from the child’s room.
So naturally, as good parents started to listen a little closer, got a little closer to the door just to kind of hear what was being displayed or being played. And much to our surprise, in gall, it was not something we expected to hear, something we didn’t approve of. Now, what we heard was not something like explicit rap music or pop music with, like, lyrics that don’t honor the Lord. It wasn’t something like heavy metal music with a worldview tied to is very different than our Christian worldview rather than our music our child was listening to. The child did not want us to hear, listening to out of fear of getting in trouble.
Music we knew the child knew that we didn’t approve of because this music didn’t fit into the time window when we listened to this type of music. Yes, Our child was sneak listening to the songs of the season where this child was softly jingle belling around her room, having warm thoughts of chestnuts roasting on an open fire while having joy to the world filling her heart. I mean, it’s every parent’s fear, right? One of their kids sneaking around behind their backs to listen to Christmas music outside of the Christmas season. Okay, so that’s story one.
Story two also involves my kids or kid. But at this point, none have fessed up to the culprit behind the story. So our kids have this like precious sibling code that keeps them quiet. So none have ratted out who did this. So I don’t know.
But if you come to my house at 2:45 exactly 2:45pm what you will see, you’ll see our Alexa device light up blue as a daily alarm goes off. We’re on this daily alarm that goes off. For life of me, I cannot figure out how to turn this thing off. I spent way too much time trying to figure this out with no success. Every day though, 2:45 exactly, Alexa lights up, alarm goes off, which is alarm.
The sound of, yes, you guessed it, Christmas music. Now, I tell you this at the start of the sermon here, not to vent some of my parenting woes, but to kind of set us up for our text today, which not only is a song of Mary, but it’s kind of like the first Christmas song. As Mary sang this song to the Lord, she prepared to give birth to the Christ child. Okay, now before we work through this first Christmas song, just make you a little quick reminders of where we’ve been in our study of Luke. Maybe you’re visiting with us just to kind of catch you up to speed.
So the Gospel of Luke we’ve been started a few weeks back. So this is an early account written by a man named Luke. We see in scripture as both a missionary and a doctor. And he wrote this orderly account to a man named Theophilus, who seemed to be a noteworthy person because Luke addresses him as most excellent Theophilus. And this orderly account is an account concerning the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which Luke did, was able to get through like eyewitnesses.
So we were in a few weeks back in our ordinary account, we learned that the long awaited Christ or Messiah was coming into the world. We’re in accordance with the Old Testament prophecy, the book Isaiah, though Christ would come on Christmas through immaculate conception as a virgin would become with child, which we saw in the text was Mary. And as further review based on cultural norms. So Mary would have been like maybe 12 to 15 years old at the time. She seemed to be very common, an ordinary woman, probably poor, probably a simple peasant, most likely like illiterate.
She’s from a little town called Nazareth, which is a culturally, an area of, a culturally despised area of Israel called Galilee. And as Mary became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit, as we learned in Luke, she was the name of this child, Jesus, as Jesus the Christ came to save his people. Okay then, if you’re with us. Last week in our text, as Mary learned about this miraculous birth that was going to come through her, we read in haste. Mary left her home and made a long, fairly dangerous three day journey to meet her aunt, a lady named Elizabeth, who as you remember was much older than Mary, but who also recently became pregnant through a miracle, as Elizabeth became pregnant through her husband Zechariah, who was a priest, who like Elizabeth, also was advanced in age.
And their child was to be named John. As you may remember, this John was also promised in the Old Testament of one to come would be the forerunner to prepare the way for the Christ. In our text last week, as Mary and Elizabeth connected, the joy of Jesus was at the center of this engagement. As the joy of Jesus, even from the womb, not only filled the hearts of Mary and Elizabeth, but also the heart of John while he still was in the womb, as from the womb of Elizabeth, as you may remember, John leapt for joy as Jesus came near. And one of the things we talked about a lot last week, that this joyful scene was really kicking off this new era or new age of joy.
There wasn’t joy before the coming of the Christ. In fact, if you remember from our sermon last week, the Old Testament is a book that is filled with joy. But now the coming of Christ, who was born on Christmas, and even fuller joy was present. Joy to the world was now being ushered in last week as Mary, Elizabeth as well as John in the womb were filled with the joy of Jesus. We read Elizabeth also was filled with the Holy Spirit of God, where through the power of the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth testified to the blessedness of Mary, as Mary was blessed by God to be given the grace to be the mother of the Christ.
Now this morning, this week, as we work through this first Christmas song, we see Mary further testify to this grace that was given to her. Where in this song, Mary gives us much instruction on what Christmas, the coming of Jesus Christ in the world, what that ought to do in our hearts. So that as an introduction, if you want to look back at these Mary text. And as you look back, yes, I do feel a little hypocritical here that working on this today, October, well before the day after Thanksgiving, but this is where we are. So that’s what we’re gonna do today.
So starting in verse 46. So after Elizabeth declared to Mary that she is blessed for believing the word that was spoken to her concerning this virgin birth, we see now Mary now responds back. And she responds back with a heart filled with joy and worship and wonder towards the Lord, where in her joy in worship, in wonder, we see Mary respond back in a song where she declares in the song in the opening line, that my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. Okay, now just a few things here. So first, this song of Mary, this is often referred to as like the magnificent of Mary.
And the reason why is because the first line says, my soul magnifies the Lord. Second, this song of Mary, so this is written in a poetic form and there’s actually a little bit of parallelism going on the first line. So the phrase my soul magnifies, my spirit rejoices, we’re in this parallelism. Like the soul and spirit are words that are actually used, like interchangeably here. Third, throughout the song of Mary, there are many references or allusions to the Old Testament scripture.
In fact, there’s so many, I actually decided not to point them all out to you in this sermon simply because it would just take too much time. But just know a lot of this song. This is Mary, like, singing about truths of God’s word. Truths are being fulfilled, the coming of the Christ that she was about to give birth to. Fourth, kind of on this Old Testament note, many pointed out that this song of Mary sings pretty similarly to the song of Hannah, if you remember her from the Old Testament.
So she’s a great character of faith in the Old Testament who also was like barren with all child until she miraculously gave birth to a child named Samuel who became prophet and priest. So if you’re interested, you can read more about Hannah’s song in her son Samuel in the book of first Samuel. But for our purpose today, it does feel like Mary had like, Hannah’s song in mind as she wrote her song. Fifth, something I just want to point out by Derek, actually pointed out in our Monday morning men’s small group is just a personal nature of this song of Mary in the first few lines of the song, and I do think this is actually really important for us to see Here in the opening lines, I just read to you how Mary sung. So she says, my soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in who, God, my Savior.
In this personal nature of the song. We’ll see more in the next couple lines and we’re going to do just a bit, but just take note of that already here. So when it comes to the worship of the Lord, to the rejoicing in God, to the wonder of God. So, yes, there is very much to be a corporate nature of worship and rejoicing, which is actually one of the most important functions that we have as a church where we, like, corporately do these things together. And this is one of the reasons, many reasons, why we think Sunday morning is just so critically important, you know, for us to come together to one body, to connect, to worship the Lord together corporately.
However, that being said, for the corporate nature of worship and rejoicing to truly be present, to truly exist, first, there must be a personal nature of worship where in our own individual hearts, we’re seeking to magnify the Lord, whereas individuals, we are rejoicing in the Lord where we have, like, personal wonder and amazement of our God, like, for who he is, for what he’s done for us through the word that he’s given to us, through the Christ who has came for us. Like, we worship the Lord, we see the Lord as like our personal Lord and Savior, which comes through our own personal faith in Him. Okay, it’s one more thing I just want to mention before we move on. So you see in the second line, notice how Mary rejoiced in God my Savior, like our God her Savior. And I want to point this out, because Mary understood that she needed a savior.
Okay? As godly of a woman as Mary seemed to be. And scripture, what we see in Mary, like, she really does give us example, like an aim and conduct in life that would be good for us to follow. Yet, that being said, Mary still was a sinner who needed a savior, just like we all do, right? From the least of us to the greatest of us, we all need God to be our Savior.
For Mary in this song, as she rejoiced, she did so in ways that by faith, like she believed. And she knew that God was her Savior, the Savior of her sins. Some text in the opening verse, My soul magnifies the Lord, My spirit rejoices in God my Savior. Verse 48 for it to you guys there. And further magnifying further revolution, rejoicing in the Lord.
Mary testified how the Lord looked upon her a humble, simple servant of God where the Lord looked upon her even in her most humblest state. Now this Mary here, this is much like Elizabeth from our text last week, right in this line here, which is sense like Mary’s not feeling like any entitlement to the Lord doing this work that he was choosing to do through her. She didn’t assume that she like earned this privilege to be the mother of the Christ because of her own like righteous deeds. Mary understands this was a grace in her life. She rightly understands that she’s just a humble servant of the Lord for the Lord to use however he pleases.
The end of verse 48 in the song, not only did Mary humbly recognize this grace of God in her life, but she also humbly understood how this grace on her would be a grace that would be testified by others throughout history. So Mary’s song for behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed as God’s people. From generation to generation, as they think about Christmas, they think about Mary. You’ll see the evidence of God’s grace on her. And by the way, let’s just think about this for a second here.
Let’s not underestimate just some of the foresight that Mary has here by understanding this offer generation to generation, others will call her blessed. I keep saying it based on cultural norms. Mary was really young, 12 to 15 year old, most likely at this scene. And as a young woman, can you imagine all of the things that had to be running through her head as she learned about this incredible grace that was being bestowed upon her? I’m just thinking about the lot of immediate real challenges that she had to work through.
I mean, like, where was she going to live or how would she support herself in this child, especially if her parents decided to maybe kick her out because of some type of like stigma attached to becoming pregnant out of wedlock. I’m sure she had concerns like, what would Joseph, who she was engaged, be married? What would he do as he heard news of this pregnancy, which in Scripture would actually been legitimate concerns for Mary. Remember how Joseph actually did try to quietly remove himself from Mary? I’m sure for Mary, she’s wondering, like, what is everyone in Nazareth saying right now?
Like, she became pregnant as a virgin, but she’s pregnant, didn’t know that. She probably would’ve been like the town gossip. Furthermore, as mentioned in previous sermons, I’m sure Mary had all the difficult things that come with pregnancy, like morning sickness and fatigue. So for Mary, let’s just think about this Think about how immediate, pressing, real concerns were on her plate that have been just really easy to kind of focus just on the immediate with any real thought on a bigger picture of what God might be doing. That here in the song for Mary, she puts on a display, just great foresight.
By the grace of God, she’s able to look beyond all these immediate concerns in ways that she could testify how this grace in her life would like ripple. Well, Pastor, all throughout history, for all generations. As mentioned, as you remember the story of Christmas, the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the word who became flesh dwelling among us, they call Mary blessed people. In verse 49, Mary continues singing her praises to the Lord where she further testified how the Lord, the Lord is mighty. We’re in the Lord’s great might.
The Lord has done great things for me and holy is his name. A couple thoughts here. So once again, just notice a personal element here to this song. The Lord has done great things for me, by the way, this is actually one of the things that we hope for during like the as a church, we share like the evidence of God’s grace on us. We’re seeing and testifying to the ways of God, has done great things in our own individual lives, which by the way, hopefully something we’re doing not just during the time where we share evidence of grace as a church, but all throughout our day, each day that we’re seeing and testifying to the mighty work of God among us.
Second, I do want to mention here that even though this song has a really strong personal element to the first part of it, where’s the focus for Mary in this song? It’s not herself. Rather, in this song, for Mary, the focus is on the Lord for who he is, for the mighty works that he does. Let me just backtrack to see this. My soul magnifies who the Lord, my spirit rejoices.
In whom? In God my Savior. Right. The very God and Savior who Mary testified looked upon me, his servant in my lowly estate. In the song who is the one full of might who has done great things for Mary?
It’s the Lord and it’s the Lord. It’s his name that’s the one that’s holy.
Yes, our individual lives do matter. Yes, there’s a very real personal element to our faith. But friends, in the end, it’s about the Lord us making much about the Lord, his work in our lives, his grace upon us, his might, us rejoicing, magnifying his holy name. It’s not about us.
It’s about The Lord. And by the way, I mentioned in the intro, kind of passing. So the scene we looked at last week, remember that is a very joyful scene, as you hear last week, you remember the joy of Jesus, right? This is at the center of the entire sermon. And friends, making much about the Lord.
That’s actually where our joy is found. The old catechism is so true. What’s the chief end of mankind? To glorify God, right? Make much of him and enjoy him forever as we do so.
So this morning, if you’re here looking for joy in your life, which I know you are, because we all are, if you’re looking for joy in your life, how do you do that? It’s by making much of the Lord, making much of his holy name.
That’s where joy is found. Making much about the Lord Jesus Christ the opposite, when we try to make it about ourselves, that’s a path that always leads to misery. Keep going. Verse 50 of the text starts off a little bit of a shift from Mary testifying to God’s work in her own personal life to now the work of God that he’s done throughout history, including history. That is to come, as Mary sung.
And his mercy is for those who fear him, which is a mercy that extends from generation to generation.
For us, one of the songs we often sing on Sunday morning is the song like his mercy is more. And that will always be true for God’s people, that the mercy of God, it’s more, there’s no end to, is the mercy that extends from generation to generation to generation. Meaning there’s no generation to come where the Lord like love to show some mercy to them. But you know what? He already spent his last drop of mercy on the previous generation.
So I have like nothing left to give. Nope. For his people, the mercy of God, it’s always more generation to generation. We’re in his mercy in verse 51 of the song. The Lord has shown great strength of his arm as he providentially scattered those who are proud in the thoughts of their hearts, in the pride of their own hearts, they don’t seek to magnify the Lord.
They don’t think they need the Lord to be their Savior. They don’t pour out their lives in joyful service to the Lord as they’re seeking to make much of. Rather, in the pride of their hearts, they make all things about them, their own selfish desires, seeking after that which they feel entitled to, seeking to make their own name great. However, in the song, in the end, all the efforts for Self will not pay off. Rather self centered pursuits will only result in being scattered by the Lord.
We’re in verse 52. In the strength of his arm, Lord will even bring down the mighty from their thrones. It’s hard to know if Mary had someone or someone specifically in mind here. Maybe she’s remembering all the stories of the Old Testament that she learned. Particularly the stories where time and time again throughout Old Testament history, the Lord would bring down proud mighty kings and proud and mighty kingdoms.
Where throughout the Old Testament history the Lord proves that the King’s hearts are like streams of water in his hands, where the Lord just turns wherever he pleases. However, also let me point out some of the verbs here in the song not only sing about how the Lord brought down proud kings and kingdoms of the past, but how the Lord will also bring down proud kings and kingdoms in the future against those who are those who get war against him as they’ll come to the sure defeat. So in the text, not only is Mary singing about the past work of God, these past mighty works, but here based on the verbs, she’s also singing about the work that he will do. The Mary trust will happen.
Which by the way, kind of on this note, Christmas. So I’m pretty sure I mentioned this past, but let me mention this again here. So the song Joy to the World not only sings about the joy of Jesus that came the first Christmas, but even more so, so the hymn writer who wrote Joy to the World was actually speaking about when Christ returns, which for the hymn writer he was sure Jesus would do because God declared it so in his word. Keep going. In the song, as the Lord brings down the mighty from the kingly thrones, Mary continues to testify that in his mercy and in his strength, the Lord exalts those of humble estate.
Once again, hard to know if Mary had someone specific in mind here. Maybe once again just remembering Old Testament stories were humble, the humble were exalted. This week I did wonder if maybe Mary’s remembering back to all the Old Testament stories of women who at one point were barren without child. They talked about this, I think in the first sermon of this study, who cultured would have been like the most humble in their humble in their barrenness. Yet in the providential work of God, Lord exalted those women as not only became with child, but of all those women.
Now pointing to this birth here of a virgin giving birth to The Christ, verse 53, not only does the Lord exalt the humble, Mary sang how the Lord fills the hungry with good things. While in contrast and his justice the rich, specifically those who are rich, who are proud towards God. We see that the Lord you will send them away empty, where their pride and their wealth in the end prove to be like worthless before the Lord. Finally, where the song ends in verse 54 through 55, if you want to take your Isaiah, we read that he the Lord has helped his servant Israel, which he has done in remembrance of his mercy, meaning the Lord helped Israel, not because Israel like achieved something. This is a mercy that God gave them, a grace God gave to them.
It was part of his kindness that God helped them. And the song the Lord helped Israel, he helped them according to his mercy. You see, the Lord remembered that which he has spoken to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever. I mentioned earlier, this song of Mary is chock full with different references the Old Testament too many to point out in this time. But I do want to point out this one here.
Specifically the Lord remembrance which he spoke to the fathers, to Abraham and his offspring. So this is reference to the promise that God made all throughout the Old Testament, starting with Adam and eve in Genesis 3. So after sin came into the world, there was a promise that one of their offspring, one who would be born of a woman, would come and would make things right. Which is a promise a few chapters over. In Genesis, Lord promised that this offspring of Adam and Eve would come through the family line of Abraham, so that through his offspring, the promised one, the Messiah would come, who is mentioned would make all things right, who would redeem his people, who would be the Savior, so that through the Savior, through His grace and mercy, through his mighty hand, the nations would be blessed.
And in the song for Mary, the one who believed God’s word, believed the promises of God by faith. She understood that the child in her womb would be the fulfillment of these promises, that through her son Jesus, salvation has come. Because friends, Jesus saves. And finally, where the text ends this morning. So we read that for the next three months Mary remained with her aunt Elizabeth and uncle Zechariah before she returned home.
Now this year, these three months seems the point that Mary stayed with Elizabeth all the way up to the time Elizabeth was about to give birth to John. Now perhaps she stayed those three months just to try to help Elizabeth, when not only was far into pregnancy, but as mentioned, far into pregnancy while being advanced in age. This week I also did wonder if indeed Mary maybe did have trouble back home and her family was angry with her, were in cultural shame. Maybe they threw her out of the home. So maybe that was a factor of why she had to leave with haste in her text last week.
Maybe she’s thrown out of the home. But now three months had passed, perhaps some of the anger from her family subsided, so she decided, okay, now we can head back home. Not sure in text all we know is Mary headed home not only for Elizabeth to prepare to give birth, but also for Mary to make those same preparations as she’s now entering into her second trimester. And for us. That’s where we’re going to enter our text today in this first Christmas song.
And as we do end this time, I do want to end just with Christmas on our minds. So just a few things for us. Maybe some takeaways. So some takeaways. And maybe what we can learn from this first Christmas song in Scripture.
So first, I think I have four things here. So first we learn. Then the end. It’s all about the worship of God.
Where our souls are magnifying, Lord, where our spirits are rejoicing in God our Savior. See, that’s the chief end of mankind. That is where joy is found, to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. Where we worship not just collectively as a church, although we do that, we also worship as individuals. Where we confess, as Mary confessed, that the Lord is my Lord, my Savior.
Where we seek out to pour out our own lives in ways that are making much of his holy name. Where we do this at all times, in all aspects of our life, in all seasons of our life, we seek to find ways to worship the Lord for who he is, for what he has done for us through Christ. And we seek to do this, including all the things that are about to come our way this week. These are all God given opportunities for us to worship him, to magnify him, to rejoice in him all the good things, all the not so good things to all be given to us by God to worship Him. Second in the song of Christmas Friends, we learn it’s about us humbling ourselves before the Lord, before others, where not only do we recognize ourselves as just, humble servants, but within that we trust that as humble servants of God, then the end.
The Lord through His mighty hand, in the end he does exalt the humble as he brings down the proud. So once again, even this week, as you go about your life, listen, all of us here, we’re all going to have opportunities this coming week to have our hearts filled with pride, selfishness, entitlement, maybe looking for some type of praise of man. But once again, as those moments Come your way. Let the song of Christmas run through your head. And rather than becoming proud in those moments, just humble yourself before the Lord, trusting that in the end, the Lord, he will exalt you.
Third in the song of Christmas Friends, we just learned just how true God’s Word is. How sure how steady his promises are that he’s given to us. Mentioned this song is chock full of allusions to the Old Testament for us. This is why I hope that we all like we love God’s word while we’re seeking to study it and meditate upon it. But we hope as a church like this is what we’re actually most fellowshipping around is God’s holy word.
Knowing that the word, that it’s true and it’s right. It is God speaking to us. God revealing himself to us. This is really at the heart of this first Christmas song of Mary. Say it again.
It’s like saturated chock full of references to the Old Testament scripture. We’re in this song. She’s singing about truths of scripture, the promises of scripture that are being fulfilled as she’s about to give birth to Jesus. So say it again. Friends, love God’s word.
Treasure it above all other treasures because in the end, it leads you to Jesus Christ, which is actually the last thing I want to mention here. So in the Song of Christmas, we learn it really is all about Jesus, the very one who came to fulfill the scriptures, which he did not only by humbling himself, by being born of a virgin, being born under the law, but ultimately the Lord Jesus humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. Yet as the Lord humbled himself to the point of death to bear the punishment of our sin, to be our Savior, the Savior that we all need, including Mary. This third day, in accordance with God’s word, we know that Jesus rose again from the dead, where God the Father has highly exalted him and has put his name, the holy name of Jesus, above all names, so that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord. So for all eternity, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who this is all about, for all eternity, he will receive the worship that he deserves, where forever and ever, all generations, all his people will have his hearts or have their hearts overflowing with joy as we magnify and rejoice in Him.
So, friends, yes, say it again. I do understand some of the hypocrisy here. For me to preach a Christmas sermon in October, even though it does not fit into my family’s designated Christmas window. But this week, as I was thinking about this, I was thinking about Christmas, so my mind went to Narnia for some of you who have read those books before. So the famous line before Aslan appeared, how it’s always winter but never Christmas.
Well, this week, because Jesus Christ did come, because he was born of Mary to be our Lord and Savior, I was reminded, because Jesus Christ died and rose again, friends, now it’s always Christmas. It’s always tis the season. And because of that, theologically my nameless child, she’s actually right to listen to Christmas music. And she listen at any point on the calendar and practically whichever one of my kids set that daily reminder at 2:45. Also write because every day, friends, Christmas really should be on our hearts.
And as we remember the first Christmas, may we also long and anticipate the Christmas that is to come.
When Jesus comes again, he will come for eternal joy to fill the world. Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for Jesus Christ.
And Lord, I do pray that the song of each one of our individual hearts would be a song sung to Christ in all things.
And Lord, thank you for this song of Mary. And Lord, I do pray that you would help us just to heed its instruction and its encouragement.
And Lord, help us to not only remember what you have done for us, not just by coming to us, not only for dying for us, not only for rising again from the dead, but also help us remember and anticipate that you do promise that you’re going to come again for us.
And Lord, I pray that this morning, once again, you would fill our hearts with joy. Pray so in Jesus name, amen.