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Magnifying the Lord (Luke 1:38-56)
14 Plays3 months ago
Sunday Message recorded 28 July 2024
by Pastor Victor Morrison
First Baptist Church -- Columbus TX
1700 Milam St.
Columbus, TX, USA 78934
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Transcript
Introduction and Audience Greeting
00:00:06
Speaker
Good morning. Would you turn with me to Luke chapter one, beginning with verse 38. I appreciate Dexter and all the Pine Cove students that have been coming all summer. Thank you guys so much for choosing to come and worship with us. We've been blessed to have you guys each time. And so I thank the Lord.
Magnifying the Lord: A Central Message
00:00:28
Speaker
They want to glorify God with their whole summer. And I hope that you are saying, you know what? I can glorify God where I work. I can glorify God in my home, in my family. I can glorify God with all that I do.
00:00:42
Speaker
That's what the message is about today. It's about magnifying the Lord. If your life were compared to a spotlight, what would you highlight? What would you say, this is what I want people to notice from my life? Would you say, I want them to notice how strong I am? I would not want that from me. like People would say, that's all you got? Oh my goodness. Would you say I want them to notice my talent, my skill? Would you say I want them to notice my looks? I want them to notice my possessions?
00:01:19
Speaker
I want them to notice my intelligence or my position. I want them to notice my career. What would you want to focus on? Well, we're going to look at a lady today named Mary.
Understanding Mary's Magnificat
00:01:30
Speaker
And in verse 46, she tells us what she was saying, I want my life to magnify. She said, my soul magnifies the Lord. The Greek word for magnify there is megaluno. It means make it great, make it large. What would you like to enlarge in our world today? What would you like to exalt or glorify? Some people say that that's why this song of Mary's that is found here in Luke 1, verse 46, all the way down through in verse 55, why it's entitled theific because that's the that's what those words are in Latin.
00:02:11
Speaker
It means to, my soul magnifies the Lord. You know, David Jeremiah says this is not the only song that was written about the birth of Christ and the coming of Christ, the first coming of Christ. He said definitely the Magnificant of Mary is found here in verses 46 to 55, but also in Luke chapter 1, verses 68 to 79, there's a blessing. the Benedictus of Zechariah. You go into chapter two and you'll see the angels want to get ah in on it and you'll see the song of the angels that they sang to the shepherds. If you were to keep going in chapter two, you would see there was a guy named Simeon who also sang sang a song and he was saying, you know what, Lord, you have fulfilled what I wanted to see in my day. You can just let me go now because you have fulfilled your word.
Illustrations of God's Greatness
00:03:06
Speaker
Well, there are two instruments. If you wanted to magnify something, what kind of instrument would you choose? You could choose, for example, a microscope, or you might choose a telescope. You know, a microscope is when you take something that isn't in reality, it's very, very small. But what you're going to do is you're going to make it appear larger than it really is. That's a microscope. But a telescope is different, isn't it? Because a telescope, when you're looking through there, you're taking something, let's say, maybe like a planet, and maybe it appears in the sky with your eye,
00:03:45
Speaker
it appears to be so tiny and so small. But you you look at it not because it's so tiny, but because it's so far away. It's so distant. And so when you're looking through the telescope, you're able to to examine it and look at it more closely. As a matter of fact, if it's a planet, can you imagine how much larger it is than what you think it is when you see it with your eye? I think that the worship of the Lord God the Almighty, when you say,
00:04:16
Speaker
I want my life to magnify the Lord. You know what you're saying? You're saying there's way more than you're going to know, there's way more to know about God than you will see in my life. But I want you to know He is so great that I want the focus of my work, the focus of my life to be on magnifying Him because He is so great. I don't know if you've ever walked over every square mile of the face of this earth. You would have had to have traveled 58 million square miles. I doubt any of us in this room have done it. If you were to throw in the oceans and say, I've even walked on the water, now we really know. But anyway, that'd be 510 million total square miles. So the earth is large, right? It's larger than anything we've experienced.
00:05:08
Speaker
But what about Jupiter? Well, if you were to take, for example, a Jupiter in the night sky, Jupiter looks so small. There's a picture of it up in the night sky whenever it's in opposition, meaning whenever it's between the earth and the and the sun. And there it is. You know, you can see it in that picture with a church there. You're looking up in the night sky and you're saying, yeah, it's definitely bright. The next time it's gonna be like that is December the 7th of this year, 2024. So if you wanna see it like that, you need to look on December 7th. It'll be brighter than it's ever gonna be. But that planet there, Jupiter, it's king of the planets because it's the largest one in our solar system. As a matter of fact, it is so large that it could hold
00:05:55
Speaker
1300 Earths. That's how large it is. So when you look through a telescope and you see that, you know, the reason I chose that picture, by the way, the the picture through the telescope, that's the Hubble telescope. And I saw an article that said NASA catches Jupiter looking at the Hubble telescope. And so what they said is it's using its cyclops eye. You kind of look at you, you don't like that in a saying. Look at you, you know? So anyway, but you know what? the The Lord God the Almighty, He's way bigger. He's way larger. He's way greater than anything we could ever experience or know or sing about and so forth. So that's why Mary can't, she can't take it. It's so much that she's saying, you know what?
00:06:49
Speaker
I'm going to have to magnify Him but because the Lord is not just the King of the planets. He's the King of the universe. He's the Lord of time. He's the one that Revelation says, who is, who was, and who is to come. He's never going to end. That's who we're talking about when we're talking about the Lord God the Almighty. You know, God's purpose for us, the reason He created you and me and every person on the whole planet, He created us to glorify Him. He created us to magnify Him. So everywhere we go, we are to say, don't look at me, don't look at what I have. I want you to look at how great the Lord is.
Scripture Reading: Mary's Visit to Elizabeth
00:07:32
Speaker
So I want you to see somebody who chose to do that. We're gonna break into where Josh was, his message ah last week, and we're gonna catch the last the last verse that he read from verse 38. So would you stand in honor of God's word? I wanna focus on the praise song that Mary sang, but I wanna give some ah a little bit of background as we run up to it. So we're gonna start with verse 38 and go down through verse 56. And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah. And she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.
00:08:27
Speaker
And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. 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
00:09:25
Speaker
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 has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and 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 as he spoke to our fathers to Abraham and to his offspring forever. And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home. Let's go to the father in prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for our calling.
00:10:17
Speaker
that every person who is created by you, which is all of us, that you called us to magnify you, to glorify the one who created us. But how much more so if we also know you as our Savior and as our Lord, help us to desire, no matter what our career is, no matter how old we are, No matter where we go this week, I pray everywhere we go that we would say, I just want to make the Lord large in my life. I want people to look at Him. I want to use my life like a spotlight to focus on Him. He has done great things for me. So bless us, O Lord, as we look at this passage together. Open it up that we could see how it applies to each one of us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Four Lenses for Magnifying the Lord
00:11:05
Speaker
Thank you. You may be seated.
00:11:11
Speaker
I wanna give you four lenses. If you're saying I would like to magnify the Lord, then let's give you, let's look at four lenses that I think Mary and Elizabeth, that they used to honor the Lord. The first lens we'll look at is the lens of being distilled through surrender to God. Have you ever surrendered to God? We're gonna talk about that. We're also gonna talk about being filled with the Spirit of God. We'll look at being instilled with the scriptures. Do you just saturate your life with the word of God? Do you just let God's word into your heart? Are you thrilled with songs of praise about God? Those are the things we're gonna look at today. So I want us to first look at this lens of surrender. Surrender to God.
00:12:02
Speaker
I want to ask you a question off the top. Do you think that the Lord would have been pleased and honored and glorified through Mary's life if she had chosen to doubt when the angel said, God's going to place the Son of God in your womb? And what if she would have said, you know what, not me. I don't want to do that. I don't want to be a part of that. Do you think that God would have been magnified? I don't think so. I think that part of where she started was with surrender. And with us, it's the same way. Have you ever said to the Lord, Lord, my life doesn't belong to me. You gave me my life. You gave me my breath. You gave my heart to beat today. My lungs are working today. I'm so grateful for all that you've given to me. I want to honor you, but also, Lord,
00:12:51
Speaker
you gave your son to forgive me of my sins. And so, Lord, it is a joy for me to surrender my life and to say, I am all yours. Have you ever done that? I believe that Mary did that. If you look with me again at verse 38, I want to show you three steps that she took in surrendering her life to the Lord. I believe the first step was she anchored her identity in him. You see, that's why I asked that question at the beginning. what are you going to focus on? You're going to focus on your identity because it's who you are. But what did she say was her identity? In verse 38, Mary says to the angel, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. I'm the servant of the Lord. That was her identity. What would you say your identity is? You fill in the blank. I am
00:13:46
Speaker
What are you? What would you say? Where is your anchor? Where is it anchored that you would say, this is who I am? That's who she was. But also I find that she also aligned her life with God's plan for her. The next thing she says is, Behold, I'm a servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. let it be to me according to your word." In other words, she was presenting herself to the Lord for whatever he had in mind. And what she had was just told was, you're going to give birth to the Son of God. And so she was saying, you know what, let it be to me according to your word. You know what we say sometimes instead of let it be, we say, let me. This is what I want to do with my life.
00:14:36
Speaker
But we need to come to that point where we say like Mary, you know what? I want your plan for my life. Whatever that plan includes, that's what I want. I believe that's what surrender is. Surrender means I'm going to say, you know what? You're my Lord. And so because you're my Lord and that's where my identity is, I'm your servant, then here's the next step, Lord. I'm willing to align my life with whatever you want for my life. That's powerful. But then because she did that, the angel had said to her, you know, um you're going to have a child. And she was like, how can that happen? Because I'm a virgin. This can't happen physically. I don't understand.
00:15:18
Speaker
And so the angels said, well, the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you. That's how you're going to have this child, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is going to have a great kingdom and so forth. And he says to her, he says, you know, by the way, your relative Elizabeth Nobody thought she was going to have a baby either. She was barren, but now she's six months into her pregnancy and she's going to have a child. And I wonder if Mary was like, I hadn't heard that. This is this is before you know Facebook or all those different things they have these days. I mean, they were saying, well, this is incredible. No texting there. But whenever she heard that and she heard the angels say, for with God, nothing will be impossible with God.
00:16:03
Speaker
Nothing will be impossible to God. That's why the song that we sang is so true. and Nothing will be impossible. If you wanted to bring Mary up as a witness, I'm sure she would say it was impossible, but not with God. It happened. But I think that she wanted to have assurance. And so she says, I need to go and see Elizabeth. And so I believe that the third thing she did, she accessed her assurance through him. She accessed her assurance through him. Where do you access your assurance? Through your feelings?
00:16:39
Speaker
Or are you going with what God has promised or what God has said? John MacArthur believes that Mary's immediate journey over, get this, over 60 miles to the home of Elizabeth was all about one thing, confirmation of God's will. He listed three things in his commentary on Luke that it was a confirmation of. There was first, personal confirmation. Because just like Mary, Elizabeth had a block on being able to have a child. She was old in age, but it says that Elizabeth, who was barren, she now is in her sixth month. And so Mary was saying, that right there is God breaking through.
00:17:21
Speaker
But then you go to Mary. Well, she was a virgin, so she had never been with a man. You know, at least Elizabeth was married. And so it was like, I can't believe she's going to have a child because she hasn't had children all this long. And now she's going to have a baby. So she was like, this is incredible. She can understand exactly what I'm going through. So she travels 60 miles to go and tell Elizabeth, you won't believe what God has done. But when she greets her, what happens? the baby jumps inside Elizabeth's womb. And it's like, I don't know if he was doing back flips in there or what, but John the Baptist was saying, yes, that's what I'm talking about over there. You know, he was so excited. That was his purpose.
00:18:05
Speaker
And so she had such assurance that came to her personally, but there's also that physical confirmation when he jumped because then she began to realize this is really happening just like God said, prophetic confirmation. Well, I want to move from talking about the surrender. I believe that's the first step. If you're gonna ever find out how to magnify God, you'll have to begin by surrendering everything, yielding the throne of decision-making in your life to the Lord. Say, Jesus, you're worthy of it. You died for me. And so I wanna allow you to take the throne of my life. If you will do that, I believe it'll purify your life. But what will empower your life?
00:18:53
Speaker
the Spirit, the Spirit of God. Are you filled this morning with the Spirit of God? Before I came, I asked God, please, today, God, I yield my life to you. Please, today, God, let people see Jesus in me. I pray that today, God, I'd be filled with your Spirit that we would see what you could do, not what I can do, not what flesh can do.
00:19:18
Speaker
You know, Elizabeth, it says in verse 41, was filled with the spirit. It means to be so satiated. It means to be controlled. I want you to hold your place there, because I want to show you a passage, if you've never seen this before, it's found in Galatians 5. And I believe it tells us, why should I yield my life to the power of God's spirit? Here's why. Galatians 5, it's powerful. This passage is powerful. The Holy Spirit is a person. He's powerful too. As a matter of fact, aren't you glad we have air conditioning and lights? Do you know that for the last, I don't know, over 24 hours now, we did not have ah electricity here in the building.
00:20:01
Speaker
And so I'm just so thankful that we have power today. And so I'm grateful to God, but I was all ready to come and preach this message and to say to you, we might not have electrical power, but we got spiritual power going today. And I was going to point to the Holy Spirit. So we still have His power anyway, no matter what the lights did. But I want to show you verse 16. Look at Galatians 5, 16. This ought to be a passage you're familiar with because it talks about our daily walk with the Lord. And it says, but I say walk by the Spirit. Why?
00:20:36
Speaker
Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. You see, in your life there's a struggle for control. Either you're going to control, the flesh is going to control, or you're going to yield and say, I want Jesus to be in control. And when you do that, the Holy Spirit gives you an extreme amount of unlimited spiritual power. so you can resist temptation, so you can stay on track with what God's purpose is in your life. But it goes on to say in verse 17, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit.
00:21:11
Speaker
and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do." Have you ever struggled with that? Have you ever thought, I want to honor God, I want to please Him, but every time my friends come around, I give in, I knuckle under. What do you need? You need the Spirit's power. And then it says, but if you are led by the spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
00:22:03
Speaker
Those are all things the flesh does. But what about the spirit? What will the Holy Spirit produce in your life? Well, here's what it says in verse 22. But the fruit of the spirit is love. and joy, and peace, and patience, and kindness, and goodness, and faithfulness, and gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another,
00:22:46
Speaker
That's why we need the fullness of God's Spirit every single day. I ran across a quote by a pastor named John Piper. I think he might be in Minnesota, I'm not sure. But here's something he said, and I think this is what happens when Jesus is on the throne, when my life is full of the Holy Spirit. You know what happens? I begin to magnify the Lord. I magnify Him because now I'm satisfied with Him. I don't have to go drink at the the dirty wells of the world.
00:23:19
Speaker
I'm so filled with what God can do in my life. So listen to this one succinct statement that John Piper made. Jesus is most magnified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Let me say it again. I think it's worth writing down. If you're a note taker, Jesus is most magnified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Are you satisfied with the Lord today? If you're not, it could be he's not on the throne, something else, someone else is on the throne. It could be your life's not filled with the Holy Spirit. Life's filled still, being operated by the flesh. Why? Jesus died on the cross, so he'd be free of that. Well, let's go to the third lens. The third lens is scripture.
00:24:12
Speaker
You know, Psalm 119, 11 says, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. That's where the victory comes. The more of God's word, are you just being filled up to overflowing with God's spirit? How about with God's word, with the word of God? You know, as we read through Mary's song, You may not realize this off the top, but if you were to look in the margin, if your ah Bible has a lot of like reference notes and so forth, if you look at each one of those verses, they take you all over the Bible. You know why? Because her song, keep in mind she's only like 13, 14 years old. Mary was really, really young.
00:25:02
Speaker
And so it's amazing that even though she was so young, her song was biblically based. Is your worship always biblically based? Do you say, I want to sing things that match with the scripture? You know, every verse in her song from verse 46 when she says, and Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord. And then she just cuts loose right there. Do you know that all through there? Every single verse in there is like this reference or a concept or a phrase that is from all over the Bible, just different places.
00:25:41
Speaker
And so it's amazing that it's like a beautiful tapestry that she's taken from Isaiah. from Genesis, from Deuteronomy, from 1 Samuel, from Job, from the Psalms, from Micah, from Habakkuk. And she just wove it all together in one unique praise of the Lord. So I put down some references there. These are just a few of them. I mean, but I could not believe that she had done this. And so I thought to myself, how did she do this?
00:26:15
Speaker
I mean, we've probably got 13, 14 year olds in here that knows more scripture than I do. Maybe you could stand up and share with us the verses you've learned in Awana and you could put me to shame, maybe. But here's the thing, how did she do it? Because no individual, no family back then had a copy of the Bible. Remember the New Testament, it hadn't even been written yet. So the New Testament wasn't even there yet. I mean, it's it's in motion, you know, because here Jesus is about to be born. This is before he was born. So New Testament's not there. All day of the Old Testament, the only ones who had the Old Testament would be like, in the temple, in the synagogues. Do you remember one time in Luke 4 it says that Jesus went into the temple at Nazareth, that's where she's from, goes in the temple at Nazareth and they say, you want to read? And he opens up the scroll and he reads from Isaiah.
00:27:07
Speaker
And then he closes the scroll, he sits down and says, today, that right there has been fulfilled in your presence. And they were like, wait, that is about the Messiah. What are you saying? it You know, so anyway, I'm just saying this is an incredible passage. How did she do it? You know what they tell me? She wasn't sleeping in church. Whenever she would go to synagogue, man, she was awake. So that's why I've asked them to record any sleepers in today's service. And you can see it tonight on the six o'clock news. I'm kidding. We're not going to do that. But anyway, man, she must have been paying close attention. But you know what? I think there's something even more possible. Her parents.
00:27:53
Speaker
Her parents worked with Mary. Her parents discipled Mary. Her parents said, let me hear you tell it back to me. I'll tell it to you, you tell it back to me. I'll tell it to you, you tell it back to me. I think they told her all the Old Testament, all those narratives of things that God had done, the great things. That's why now that she's putting together a song from her heart, she's just able to remember it. But remember, there's also this other factor. She was inspired. The word of God is the inspired word. The Holy Spirit was also in this equation. So yes, she had memorized scripture, but also the Holy Spirit is bringing to her mind verses that she had memorized. Are you memorizing scripture?
00:28:43
Speaker
Let me just give a little tip to you, just some counsel, pastorally. If you're struggling with worry, let's say, why don't you go through the scriptures and find a lot of verses about worry? If you can't sleep at night, go through the scriptures and find, what what about a good night's rest? If you're saying, I feel afraid of what's gonna happen here or there, we'll look up scriptures that talk about peace or about why you shouldn't be afraid. Because as we internalize God's word, it It's amazing how it's going to come out. It's going to come out in the way we live. And we're going to honor God. We're going to put the focus on Him, which leads me to the fourth and final lens. Songs of praise. Songs of praise. You see, her life's magnifying glass was on one thing.
00:29:31
Speaker
the attributes of God. It's on the attributes of God. I think she's just so thankful that one of these days, nine months later, whatever, she's going to give birth to the Son of God. the Lord Jesus Christ who created everything. He was the agent that the Father used to create everything. Can you imagine
Mary's Focus on God's Attributes
00:29:51
Speaker
how humbling that would be? No wonder she says in verse 48 that God has looked on the humble estate of His server. I think Mary was like so amazed at what God was going to do in her life.
00:30:05
Speaker
You know Philippians 3 verses 18 and 19 identifies this group that Paul said they're like enemies of the cross. Who are enemies of the cross? Well, he said the enemies of the cross are those who want to glory in their shame. Have you ever seen anything like that? People want to glory in their shame. It's shameful what they're doing, and yet they're so proud of it. They're so excited about it. Well, he said that's of being an enemy of the cross, but then also they set their mind not on things above, but on earthly things. Everything's about earthly things. They're not thinking about God's stuff at all. They're only thinking about earthly things.
00:30:49
Speaker
But when I read from verse 46 through verse 55, I just couldn't believe it. I thought, here's this young lady and she is just so laser focused on God that she can tell you exactly who he is and what he is like. Could you tell somebody? Could you sit at one of the coffee shops in town? They just opened a new one. Could you sit at one of the coffee shops in town and talk to somebody and say, let me tell you about how great my God is. This is why He's so awesome. Could you just do that? She could talk about His Lordship. Let's look at verse 46. My soul magnifies who?
00:31:30
Speaker
the Lord. He's not a Lord. He's the Lord. She's talking about His lordship. She's talking about His salvation. And my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. Did you know Jesus was Mary's Savior as well? I think that's so cool. She said, you know what? He's my Savior. So she's exalting them for that. She's exalting him for his great power. You know, if you were to skip down to verse 49, for he who is mighty has done great things for me. I bet God's done great things for you as well. Do you know that he's not only mighty, and he's not only a God of salvation, he's not only the Lord who's in control and sovereign, but there's another thing. He's holy. He's holy.
00:32:17
Speaker
So we have to say, I should be holy because He is holy. That's what the Bible says. We should adjust our behavior. So as we do that, you know what happens? We magnify Him and we're saying, you want to know what God looks like? This is what He looks like. I'm not talking about being legalistic and I'm not talking about being pharisaical. I'm not even talking about being religious. I'm talking about being like Him and He is holy. I thought also not only did she sing about His holiness, but she also included His mercy. Don't forget that one. And His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation. You know, I think sometimes people think, well, God can't be holy and be merciful. Oh, yeah.
00:33:02
Speaker
There's a great preacher from the past Spurgeon and he said, you know what, whenever someone in scripture would sing about the great attributes of God, one attribute of God did not wash away, did not overshadow the other attributes of God. He can be holy and he can be merciful all at the same time. Well, she also sang about his sovereignty in verse 51, he has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts." She sang about his authority. Why would I say authority? Well, because verse 52 says, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones. Have you ever read about that in history? Whenever it's like someone's on the highest throne there is, and they're all of a sudden brought down, it's like it can happen overnight.
00:33:51
Speaker
that That's something only God can do because He has authority not only in heaven but also on earth is what it says in Matthew. But also He's a great provider. Has He ever provided anything for you? Says He has filled the hungry with good things. Has He ever provided something you needed really bad and He came through? Have you ever gone back to thank Him? Do you need God to intervene in your life? Well, it says in verse 54, Mary said, you know what another thing I could praise him for? He's helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. yeah He can intervene. His interventions are great. But also she didn't forget about Abraham. She thought, you know what? God's been promising things to us for a long time and he's just delivering those promises.
00:34:41
Speaker
She said, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever. Wow. Genesis 12. It's amazing how much she could just focus on the Lord. It's almost like she had read or heard Jeremiah chapter nine, verses 23 and 24, where God says, don't let a man boast in his wisdom. Don't let a man boast in his might. And don't let a man boast in his riches. If you want to boast about anything, he says, boast in this, that you understand and you know me. Whoa, man, that just sort of simplifies all of life.
00:35:25
Speaker
And I think Mary said, that's what I'm going to boast about. I'm going to put the spotlight on it. I want to magnify it. Did you notice how Mary personalized her faith? I said it earlier, but she said, my soul magnifies. My spirit rejoices because he's my Savior. So authentic, so real. This is incredible that she would say this. So internal, so personal. Is that the way your magnification is? That you're saying this is what he's done in my life. David magnified the Lord. Do you know that 39 years ago, in the month of August, coming up on August the 10th, my wife Jody and I, we stood right here at this altar. And before we stood there, we sent out wedding invitations.
00:36:13
Speaker
Maybe you'd say, I didn't get no wedding invitation. This was 1985, so I'm still a college student. But anyway, what I'm going to say is, this is incredible that we put down on our wedding invitation, Psalm 34.3. It says, O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. I think that's a great verse for a marriage. Why don't you pray that over your marriage? Say, Lord, here's what we want to do. We want to magnify you in our marriage. We want to exalt your name together. That's what we want to do together as a family. I think a whole family could do that. But my point is the magnification should be personal, but it can also be so relational. Wasn't marriage relational?
00:37:01
Speaker
I believe it was, wasn't it? Where was she saying this? She was saying that when she was standing right there by Elizabeth, when she was standing there in the home of Zachariah and Elizabeth. Have you ever magnified God in front of your family? And he said, you know what? I know y'all might not be where I am, and you might not want to glorify God, but I just want you to know He's done so much for me. I can't hold it back. I want you to know how great He is in my life. But I think that that leads me to say what David's comment was in Psalm 39.30. He said, I'll praise the name of God with a song. Just like Mary, right? Why, David? Why are you going to praise the name of God with a song? He said, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to magnify him with thanksgiving.
00:37:46
Speaker
I believe that also our magnification of the Lord ought to be out of gratitude. We ought to be grateful. We ought to be willing to do it relationally. We ought to say it's personal for me. What are you magnifying in your life? You know, if you really think about it, isn't that almost like Mary's profession of faith? She's trying to tell us. She's trying to tell us, I trusted the Lord as my Savior. You know, like David, her glory to God was relational. I believe it was also grateful.
Call to Action: Glorify God in Life
00:38:19
Speaker
But the first step she made in verses 46 and 47 was she said, he's my Savior. You know, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10 31, whatever you do,
00:38:33
Speaker
do all to the glory of God. Why don't this week all of us say, you know what? I'm going to glorify God. I'm going to glorify God with my talents. I'm going to glorify God with my time. I'm going to glorify God it at the at the office or on the job site. I'm going to go glorify God with my skills. I'm going to glorify God with my voice. I'm going to glorify God in everything I do. You know what? Get ready because God's favor is going to be upon you. Why don't we all stand together? I want to close with an opportunity for people who would say, I don't even have him as my savior. I've never surrendered my life to the Lord. That's where you start. You begin by saying, God, you love me so much that you sent your son for me. So we're going to have just a moment here of giving people an opportunity to come and respond. to what they've heard. So if you've never trusted Christ, it all begins with this desire to turn from sin
00:39:32
Speaker
And it means to repent, but you turn from sin and you turn to Christ. You realize that out of grace, He's offering you salvation. Not out of works, out of grace. All it takes is for you to trust Him. All it takes is for you to surrender to Him. That's where you start. That's when you can say, I'm going to glorify Him this week because He is now my Savior. Let's pray together. Lord, I pray that some in this room would be ready to make that decision today. that they would say, you know what? I want Jesus to be my Savior. I want Him to be my Lord. I want to surrender everything I have so that in all that I do, I can glorify and magnify Him.
Conclusion and Closing Prayer
00:40:16
Speaker
Lord, the Bible says that all across heaven right now,
00:40:20
Speaker
Heaven is saying that you are worthy, and we agree with that. You are the only one worthy of our magnification, of our glorification. Lord, you're the only one worthy of our honor and praise. So be lifted up during this time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
00:40:42
Speaker
This is a ministry of First Baptist Church, located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas.