What makes Mary's song one of the most counter-cultural ever written?

In Luke 1, a young woman responds to astonishing news with a song of praise — the Magnificat. In this sermon, Dr. Toby Holt explores why this humble hymn turns the world's values upside down.

Questions this sermon answers:

1. What news did Mary receive? That she would bear the Messiah, conceived by the Holy Spirit — a virgin birth, fulfilling prophecy.

2. What does Mary's song celebrate? A God who exalts the lowly and humbles the proud, who fills the hungry and sends the rich away empty.

3. Why is it counter-cultural? Because it locates all greatness in God, not self — magnifying the Lord rather than human status, power, or wealth.

"And Mary said: 'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.'" — Luke 1:46-47 (NKJV)

Speaker: In Luke 1, a young woman responds to astonishing news with a song of praise — the Magnificat. In this sermon, Dr. Toby Holt explores why this humble hymn turns the world's values upside down.

In Luke 1, the angel Gabriel was sent to a young Jewish woman named Mary in order to

tell her two things.

The first was that the long-awaited Messiah was near.

In fact, his arrival was imminent.

And the second was that she, Mary, would give birth to him.

She would be his mother.

So what was Mary's response to this startling news?

How did she react?

That will be the focus of today's study.

Over the past number of years, my family and I have received a number of birth announcements.

Now, some of them come from friends and family, neighbors and the like, and a lot of them come

from folks in our church circles. Now, you all know what a birth announcement is, but do you

know when the first birth announcement occurred? Well, if you're thinking all the way back to the

book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 3, then you get a gold star. The first birth announcement occurred

in the book of Genesis. In Genesis chapter three, right after the fall, right after God evicted Adam

and Eve from the garden, he declares that she will have children. And specifically, he declares that

there will be a child. There will be a child, maybe somewhere far down the line, a seed, capital S.

The seed would come from her progeny, who would be great, who would be like no other child ever born.

A seed would come who we sometimes refer to as the Messiah.

So this is the first birth announcement you'll ever see anywhere in Genesis 3, verse 15.

With that said, the birth announcement was a little more vague than some of the ones we see in modern culture.

It was a little more vague in this way.

The details weren't all there.

Specifically, when would this child come?

You see, Eve might have expected it would come right away.

In fact, when she first had a child, she says, behold, a son.

She had some hope or expectation that this seed, that this one who would come to crush the serpent beneath his foot,

that he would come imminently, immediately.

And for centuries thereafter, that was the great desire of God's people.

As they blossomed through the seed of Abraham and the patriarchs, on through David and beyond,

there was this desire that this one, the seed, this child, this one whose birth was proclaimed so long ago

that he would show up in our age because, dear God, we need him.

People like Habakkuk would look up to God and say,

how long, O Lord?

The desire was that this one would come, that he would smite the enemies,

that he'd deal with the Babylonians, that he'd deal with the Assyrians,

that he'd deal with the Romans, that he'd usher in the days of milk and honey,

that the one would come to smite the serpent, to deal with sin and death,

and bring healing to the land.

And for centuries the people waited, for he hadn't arrived.

For centuries the people waited.

Now, other prophecies came about beyond what we see in Genesis 3.

Other prophecies came about that continued to anticipate, predict His arrival, His coming.

And some of those prophecies got increasingly specific about who He would be, what He would do,

even where He would be born in the city of Bethlehem, as we'll see tonight.

In tonight's text, we're going to look at Micah 5, one of the coolest prophecies you'll ever see in Scripture,

anticipated exactly where, the most unlikely place, exactly where this Messiah would come from.

With that said, there had been prophecies and expectation all the way up to the opening pages of the New Testament.

For thousands of years.

But in today's text, in Luke chapter 1, we see that the final, greatest, most eminent birth announcement was now given,

not just to the people at large, but to the very mother who would bear the child.

In today's text, the angel Gabriel, as we said before, this is the most impressive angel God has.

As God looks at the pantheon of angels around him, as he looks at all the different angels,

as he looks at Bob the angel and Stu the angel and so forth, he says,

no, Gabriel, the greatest angel I have, you're going to go to the most meek individual with this news.

So Gabriel in today's text shows up and tells Mary that,

Mary, what you've desired, what the whole people have desired going back centuries is going to happen,

is going to happen in the near term, and it's going to be realized in the form of a tiny baby that you are going to bear.

Now, there's two components to that that stand out.

Before we dive into the text, there's two components that stand out.

The first one is that even if the angel had not told Mary that she would be the one bearing it,

He was still giving her news that would have just blown her mind,

that the Messiah would show up in her generation.

Again, everyone in her generation desired this because everyone in her generation was suffering.

The Jews of this age were under the foot of Rome.

It was a terrible time for Israel.

They had a wicked vassal king named Herod.

They had Caesar hundreds of miles away.

They had legions of Roman soldiers marching down their streets.

This was a terrible time to be a Jew.

And so for the news to come that the Messiah, the long-promised one, the Savior, would show to Mary,

that alone would have been just mind-blowing, great, wonderful, awesome news.

But that's not all he told her.

Beyond that, he told her this, that this one, that this king, would be born to her.

And the angel gave some of the characteristics of this king to Mary.

He said in today's text, he said, he will be great. He'll be called the son of the highest

and Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. He will reign over the house

of Jacob forever and of his kingdom, there will be no end. Behold, Mary, you will conceive and

you will bear this king. Now, outside of the shock of that, what was Mary's response? Well,

that's what we're going to see in this text. Let me look again at verses 26 through 28 and we'll

just work our way through the selection. Verse 26. Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was

sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth. Now, side note, everyone hated Nazareth. Nazareth

was a dump. No one liked Nazareth. This was the least likely place for such a one to come. So in

the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin

betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David now the virgin's name was Mary

and having come in the angel said to her rejoice highly favored one for the Lord is with you

blessed are you among all women all right let's set the scene a little bit here for all that's

going to occur on this first christmas day verse 26 we read that gabriel was sent in the sixth

month. The sixth month of what? If you just come to that text fresh, what is he talking about? The

sixth month of who? What went on? What is he referring to? Well, earlier in Luke chapter 1,

there had been a separate angelic visit, a separate angel siding. In the first part of Luke 1,

the angel Gabriel had come to a man named Zacharias. To a man named Zacharias who had a

wife named Elizabeth. They were both old and she was barren. And the angel came to Zacharias in

order to tell Zacharias that they would have a child. Now, what was his name to be? John. John

the Baptist. I don't know if they called him that out of the womb. Look, here's my son, John the

baptist. But, but John, absolutely. And the angel said, that's what you're going to name. You're

going to name the kid John. So the angel comes and he tells Zacharias that you are going to have a

Son. And Zacharias, you know, the shock. He's old. Elizabeth is old. This is unlike that happened.

She's been barren. And the angel says that you're going to have this child. So that's what you see

the first part of Luke chapter 1, this angel siding with a birth announcement. When we come

to verse 26, the same cycle is repeated. There's an angel siding and a birth announcement. And this

angel comes to Mary and says, rejoice, highly favored one. Now, what did he mean by that? Well,

let's see how he elaborates as we look at verses 29 through 33. Now, when Mary saw him, she was

troubled at his saying. I'm sure she was. And she considered what manner of greeting this was.

Then the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And

behold, you will conceive in your womb, you will bring forth a son, and his name shall be called

Jesus. He will be great. He will be called the son of the highest, and the Lord God will give

Him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his

kingdom there shall be no end all right when the angel had first showed up to Zacharias earlier in

Luke 1 he had told Zacharias that he and his wife would have a very important child not just any

ordinary child but a very important child specifically the angel had said that this child

that John would be great in the sight of the Lord so the angel says the child you have is going

be very important. He's going to be great in the sight of the Lord. Now, if you're Zacharias,

that's pretty cool. Imagine if you're going to have a kid, and an angel comes and tells you,

your kid is going to be wonderful and awesome. He's going to grow up to be great in the sight

of the Lord. Wouldn't you, as a parent, you'd be like, yes, yes, this is good news. Well,

of course, that's wonderful news, but what he tells Mary is far more impressive than that.

He told Zacharias, your son's going to be great in the sight of the Lord, but he tells Mary,

your child will be the Lord. You see, this is infinitely, infinitely greater news, but also

far more shocking, shocking news for Mary to hear. Now, over the years, children have been more. Over

the years, there have been a lot of kings. In Israel's own history, they'd had some impressive

kings. Kings like David or Solomon might come to mind. However, David and Solomon and Joash and

josiah and all these other guys, they had one thing in common. They were gone. All these guys

were dead. And you know what happened to their reign and their rule when they died? It ended

with them. With that said, not only did the angel tell Mary, you're going to have a child. It's

going to be a great child. This child is going to be a king, a king of kings. But he said that of

His kingdom, there will be no end. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. What this told

Mary is that this child, whatever her understanding, whatever her theology was, it told her that this

child was going to be of divine origins. He'll reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom

there will be no end. So we see in this text, this is not going to be an ordinary king. No matter what

she took away from it, she knew this. This is not going to be an ordinary king. However, she was

probably focusing on something slightly different. She wasn't probably thinking as much about what an

unordinary king would be. She was thinking about what an unordinary birth this would be. Now why?

Well, how does the text introduce her?

What characteristic does the text tell us first about Mary?

It says she's a virgin.

At this point, she's not even married.

She's betrothed, but she has not known a man at this point.

And so Mary's sitting there listening to this and going,

well, I mean, this all sounds well and good, but do you have the right Mary?

There's a lot of Marys.

Maybe you want the Mary down the street.

So she tries to remind.

In the next verses, she's going to try to remind the angel of exactly who she is

and how this can't be possible given her circumstances.

So let's look at verses 34 through 38.

Verse 34,

then Mary said to the angel,

how? How can this be, since I do not know a man?

And the angel answered and said to her,

the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you.

Therefore also that holy one who is to be born will be called the Son of God.

Now, indeed, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age.

This is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.

For with God, nothing, nothing will be impossible.

Then Mary said, behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

All right, in verse 34, Mary asks a perfectly reasonable question.

How can a virgin have a child?

We don't know what she knew about biology and anatomy and the like.

We have no idea her understanding of these things.

And yet, it's a reasonable question for people to ask in any culture.

How can a virgin have a child?

Now, before we consider the angel's answer, let me ask you a thinking question.

Why did the Messiah need to be born of a virgin to begin with?

He was, but why?

Why was that an essential part of this narrative?

Why did prophecies anticipate that that event had to happen?

The virgin will be with child.

Why?

Think about that as we look forward here.

Consider the alternative if she wasn't a virgin.

For thousands of years, children had been born.

And there was a common denominator behind every last one of them.

They're all sinful.

They're all born with a sinful nature.

In Psalm 51, King David said as much.

In Psalm 51, King David, who was no slouch in the holiness department.

King David, after God's own heart.

In Psalm 51, King David said, this is the way it works.

We're all born in this estate.

He said this,

behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and sin.

My mother conceived me.

Not simply that she was a sinner, but that sin itself affected and formed the action, the birth, every part of it.

I came into this world born in iniquity.

This is what we call the doctrine of Original Sin or total depravity or what have you.

We can talk about that at another venture.

Now, the doctrine of Original Sin, presuming it's true, which it is,

the doctrine of Original Sin suggests that if Mary and Joseph,

if Mary and Joseph had attempted to have a child on their own, then he would be, guess what?

A sinner. Born that way. Born into sin.

He would suffer from the same transmission of sin that his parents and grandparents and all the way back to Adam and Eve's first children had.

In other words, if Mary and Joseph had a child, that child would be affected and formed by sin the same way you and I are.

Naturally fallen people have naturally fallen children.

I hope that's not a shock to you.

Naturally fallen people have naturally fallen children.

It's a vicious circle that humanity can't escape from.

Paul lingers on this in the book of Romans.

He says this is one of our problems.

Of the many problems we have, this is one of them, that we're not sinners merely by choice,

although we do choose to sin, but we're sinners by nature. We're born of the first Adam. Boo!

We need to be born of the second Adam. This is the systematic he gives us in the book of Romans.

So it's a vicious circle. We're born this way. However, what if, what if a child was to be born

of divine and not natural means? What if it wasn't the union of Mary and Joseph,

if, but what if, what if the Holy Spirit overshadowed her? Would this child, if it was

conceived of God in that sense, be tainted by sin? And the short answer is no. And that's essential.

If the human race was ever going to be redeemed, it was not capable of producing its own Redeemer.

Look at your own kids. Look at yourself. If the human race was ever to be redeemed, it was not

capable of producing its own Redeemer, which is why Jesus could not be born of the union of a man

and a woman, but rather of the Spirit, which is exactly what the angel says is going to happen.

Verse 35, verse 35, the angel answers Mary's question, says, no, Mary, you got it all wrong.

It's not going to be you and Joseph or you and anyone else. This is what will happen. Verse 35,

the Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore also,

the Holy One that's be born of you will be called the Son of God, because they'll be conceived of

God, by God, through the Holy Spirit. Now, when you think of the idea of the Holy Spirit

overshadowing and the like, does that speak to any other passages in Scripture, anything else

in Scripture? Is there a book in the Bible where we read about the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit

accomplishing anything important? I think I heard Genesis. In the book of Genesis, that's how

creation began. That's the way everything you see in the world around you started, by the work of

the Holy Spirit overshadowing that which was to be made. The very first verses, literally the first

two verses in the whole Bible declare this. Genesis 1, 1 and 2. In the beginning, God created

the heavens and the earth. How? The earth was without form and void. Darkness was on the face

of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. The Spirit of God, the

Holy Spirit, was God's instrument in creating everything we see around us. He would also be

the instrument by overshadowing that which was to be created in Mary, or born of Mary, conceived of

Mary, which is Christ himself. The Holy Spirit was God's agent, the creation of all things, and that

through the Holy Spirit, Mary would bear a child even though she was a virgin. Now, let's say that

you don't have 2,000 years of theology at your disposal. Mary couldn't look up what Turretin

said, couldn't look up what C. S. Lewis had said, couldn't look up any of that stuff. She just had

to process this kind of on the fly here. So she comes to this idea, Cole, that the Holy Spirit is

going to what now? How is this going to work? To her, again, this seemed impossible. Even though

the angel had explained it, it still seemed far-fetched. I've never known a man. It would

have to be a miracle. And the angel says, yep, that's exactly right. And he says, Mary, I'm

paraphrasing here, but he says, Mary, you want to talk miracles. You know your cousin up the road

a bit, her cousin Elizabeth. Now, she's pretty old, right? Well, she who was thought to be absolutely

barren, beyond the ability to have children, is now in her sixth month. What do you make of that,

oh Mary? Specifically, he says this in verses 36-37. The angel tells Mary, he says, now indeed,

elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is now the sixth month,

the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God, for with God, nothing will be

impossible. Elizabeth had no business being pregnant. That's why Zacharias was so shocked.

For all her life, she hadn't been pregnant. In her season of possible pregnancy, the doors seemed

shut. But now a miracle had taken place. Elizabeth was now six months along. Although

her pregnancy was improbable, the angel says, it's not impossible. And if it was not impossible for

her, Elizabeth, Mary, if it is impossible for her, then why would you doubt? With God, nothing's

impossible. With God, nothing is impossible, the angel declares there in verse 37. For what it's

worth, just as an aside, there may be things in your life where you're looking at a situation,

a hardship, you're looking at 2024, you don't know what's around the corner, and you think

that the pages are already written for 2024 based on your own presuppositions and expectations?

Well, newsflash, God can and does do miraculous things that we don't expect all the time,

and there may be something in your life right around the corner that will redress some of the

hardships that you're facing now. On the flip side, there may be additional hardships in the

years to come. Whatever the case, God tells us this much is with us as we face them, and that

nothing, no matter how difficult the hardship might be, no matter how narrow the path might look,

no matter how finite the result might seem to us, nothing is impossible. Think about that when you

make your New Year's resolutions here in the week to come. So Mary's just been told this. The angels

answered the question. Remember Elizabeth and the miracles happened. Nothing's impossible. What does

she do at this point? Are there additional objections? Does she have this list of things

go, all right, well, how about this, this, and this? Well, no, to her infinite credit here,

she doesn't do that. There's no sense of additional hemming and hawing and wondering

what's going on. There's also no sense that she ran from the room as, you know, others had run,

God say, do blank, and they say no, and they were gone. Think Jonah. There was others like Gideon,

who God say, you're the one chosen for this, and Gideon, you know, there's got to be someone else.

She didn't do that either. She doesn't suggest that God is the wrong person. Instead, Mary said,

yes behold your maidservant let it be to me as as thou hast said all right let's look at verses 39

through 45 then Mary rose in those days and went in the hill country with haste to a city of judah

and entered the house of zechariah and greeted elizabeth and it happened when elizabeth heard

the greeting of Mary that the babe leaped in her womb and elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit

then she spoke out loud with a loud voice saying blessed are you among women and blessed is the

fruit of your womb. But why is this granted to me, that the mother of the Lord should come to me?

For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb

for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were

told to her from the Lord. All right, in these verses, verse 39 through 45, Mary goes to visit

her cousin Elizabeth, and the minute that they show up, the minute that they arrive, the minute

elizabeth hears Mary's voice in verse 41, the child that's within her, little John the Baptist,

jumps with excitement. There's a wealth of theology just in that. But this child jumps

with excitement in the womb. What's cool about that is, picture this, John the Baptist was God's

last and perhaps greatest instrument intended to point to Jesus. All the prophets have been

pointing to Jesus for years. John the Baptist was perhaps the last and the greatest of those

who would point to Jesus. And not only did he get a point to Jesus through his words,

but with his finger, behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world,

He would say as he saw Jesus on the riverbank.

Well, even here in the womb, what happens?

John the Baptist was wired, predisposed, called to do this, to point to Jesus.

And even as an infant in the womb, that's exactly what he does.

The mere proximity causes this child to recognize and jump and leap for joy,

is what we see in this text.

Doing so in utero, which seems amazing to us.

It should also tell you something about the value and sacredness of life in utero.

Tell us something fascinating about the child within the womb,

that this child was apparently dwelt with the Spirit in such a way

as to recognize his Savior just by mere proximity.

I don't know how that works, but it tells me this much.

Life is indeed precious, even in that dark environment prior to birth.

Not to be extinguished, not to be exterminated.

All right.

That said, Elizabeth then says the same thing.

As the child is jumping, as all this is going on,

elizabeth says the same thing to Mary. Blessed are you, Mary, Mary, blessed are you among all

women. Now, why does everyone keep using the word blessed to describe Mary? Well, a blessing is

something you don't necessarily earn or deserve. It wasn't that Mary was so great any more than

David was great or Saul of Tarsus was great when God chose them. It was not because Mary was great

that she was chosen. It was out of God's volition. And because it was all grace, everyone keeps

saying that she's blessed. And indeed, there's never been a blessing like it in all recorded

history. All right, so how was Mary's final response at this point in our text? Let's look

to wrap up this section this morning. What is her response at this point, after she's received the

news, after all this has gone on, after she's encountered Elizabeth, after she's had some time

to process things, what now does she have to say? Well, she doesn't say anything, but she sings it.

And I'm not going to try to emulate her, but we are going to look at this song.

Verses 46 through 56, let's see the song, the Magnificat of Mary.

Verse 46, Mary said this,

those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered

the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and he

has exalted the lowly. 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 seed forever. And then Mary remained with her, with Elizabeth for

about three months and then returned to her house. You know, there are some faith traditions

that look back to Mary and say that Mary was sinless. In other words, there are some faith

traditions that take Mary and place her on this pedestal above the whole lot of humanity itself

with the idea that she had never sinned and never would sin, that she was free not only from

original sin, as we talked about a little bit earlier, she was free from that, but there are

some would believe she was free from any personal sin all of her days.

Now, it's not a Jewish word, but I'll say this.

Balderdash.

That's not the way this works.

If Mary had been sinless her entire life,

it probably wouldn't have been a shock to her or Elizabeth or anyone else

that she would have received such a blessing.

It probably would not have been a shock to her or Elizabeth or Zacharias or anyone else

if she had been sinless all her days,

that she of all people would be the one that would receive this blessing.

When she passed by, people would look at her and go,

whoa, there's something about Mary.

There's something about this one. They would expect great things. Mary, this virtuous woman

who's never done anything wrong, never told a lie, never did any of this stuff. There's something

about that Mary. And none of them would have been shocked that she would be the one chosen with such

a responsibility. But that's not what anyone said of her. That's not what anyone said anywhere in

Scripture about her. There's no one in the entirety of the Bible who said that Mary was

sinless. And for that matter, it's not something that Mary ever said of herself either. It's not

how Mary saw herself. At verse 48, which we just looked at, Mary refers to her lowly estate.

She doesn't put herself on a pedestal. She puts herself down here. Mary says, you've looked on

me in my lowly estate. Furthermore, verse 47, she refers to God with what word? What does she say

about God? He is her what? Savior. Now help me out here. What do people need to be saved from?

Sins. Now, is it possible that she had been saved from other things or hardship, poverty, heartache

or whatnot over the years? Is it possible that God is her savior and has redeemed her from various

hardships in life? Yes. Amen and amen. And yet the context of this statement of the song and

everything you see in Matthew 1 and Luke 1 and 2 and the like, the context here is not just salvation

from hardship, but salvation from one's sins. So Mary says, my Spirit has rejoiced in God, my

savior, and that would seem to be prima facie evidence that she was, guess what, a sinner who

needed to be saved from her sins, from the same wrath that otherwise would befall all of us.

With that said, the focus of this song is not on her. The focus of Mary's song is not on her

high estate, low estate, any estate. The focus here is on God. It's called the Magnificat. Why?

Because it magnifies not Mary, but God Himself.

My soul magnifies the Lord, is what she says in the opening verse.

My soul magnifies God for who He is, for what He has done, for fulfilling the promises.

For everything about His nature and His attributes.

From one end to the other, you see verse after verse talks about His holiness and His mercy and His majesty and His kindness and His forbearance.

And His looking down on the impoverished and the hurting and raising them up.

This song is about how awesome God is.

It magnifies God in a culture that minimizes him.

That's why it stands out.

In this song, she magnifies God.

This is the most countercultural song ever written for that reason.

All the Christmas songs, I mean, I listen to them too.

You turn on Sirius on the Christmas channel and it's frosty and it's, you know, jingle bells and all that sort of stuff.

I like those songs too, but they don't magnify God.

They magnify the day and the tinsel and the lights and the gifts and the snow and all this stuff.

All the shiny, all the shiny things in the world around us

is generally speaking where our attention goes to at this time of year,

but not Mary.

She said, my soul magnifies the Lord.

And she lingered on his attributes and his characteristics.

And again, this is a startling and a culture that minimizes them even in that day.

All right, with our remaining few moments this morning, let me close with this.

At Christmas, we tend to focus on the event, and then, of course, we dress up the event.

But we tend to focus on the event, the occasion of Christ's birth and the circumstances of kind

of what went down. And that's okay. I mean, it's appropriate for us to do that. But it's

as important, perhaps more important, that we focus not simply on the event, but on who this

child is. You see, you and I aren't saved just because a child was born 2,000 years ago in a

manger in Bethlehem. It doesn't save anybody. What saves us is not the recognition that a child was

born. What saves us is not the acknowledgement that a great leader or teacher or rabbi or what

have you was born. What saves us is that God himself came down from his throne to be born in

a manger, to live the perfect life, to ultimately die for us, and that through faith in him, not

just as a king or a teacher or as a leader, but as a savior, by faith in his saving person and work,

we have eternal hope. In the manger, God took on the form of the lowliest. He didn't do it

because we're so darn lovable that he couldn't resist himself. Dear heavens, God didn't choose

you because he couldn't help himself. He didn't elect you. He didn't love you. He didn't call you

to himself because he looked down at the whole globe and said, oh, that guy. I just, he's so

lovable. It's not like his pound puppies where there's one who sticks out and God says, that one,

that's not the way that this is. We're all equally unlovable. All we like sheep have gone astray.

Everyone has turned to his own way.

There are none who are righteous, no, not one.

Now, why is that lack of righteousness important?

Why does it matter that you're a sinner?

Do you acknowledge you're a sinner?

I won't ask you to raise your hand, but do you acknowledge that you're a sinner?

If you are, then what's your hope?

If you broke the laws of one greater than you,

and the one greater than you says even breaking the law once

is sufficient to throw the whole created realm into chaos,

which is what happened in the book of Genesis,

and you've sinned more than once, you've sinned more times than you can count,

if you acknowledge that you're a sinner who has broken the laws of a holy God,

what do you expect him to do about it?

Well, I'll tell you.

Apart from any intervening grace, you can expect this to be judged.

The wages of sin is death.

Not time out, not being put in a corner in heaven.

Death. The wages of sin is death.

The holy God looks upon you and assuming there's nothing between you and him

on the day you stand before him, as another preacher put it, you will melt before him like

a wax figurine before a blast furnace, apart from anything in between. But the good news of the

Gospel is this, that although we are sinners and although that's our condition, although outside

of his intervening grace, that would be our future, God has looked down upon us while we were not

lovable, and he's determined out of his love to grant his love and his mercy to us. And you've

never seen that mercy embodied in any way like it was in the manger on that first Christmas day.

So what do you need to do this day? Faith. You're called to faith. You're called to believe.

Tomorrow morning, if you want to celebrate Christmas correctly, then know this. The child

in the manger, he's no mere child. He was God in the flesh in the city of David. It wasn't just a

rabbi, a teacher, or a leader that was born. It was something that we needed far more, a savior.

Mary knew it, which is why she identified Him as such.

Mary knew it. She knew it. She sang about it.

Tomorrow we would do well to join our voice with hers, singing this.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my Spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

Let's pray.