Pregnant with Truth

Luke 1:46-55

We still have one more hymn…a hymn of thanksgiving, and it will be sung by Mary!

Mary is pregnant with the truth.  We use that phrase, pregnant with truth, about many Bible teachings that are just packed with endless lessons for our souls.  The 23^rd Psalm is pregnant with truth, just bursting with life-changing teachings that overflow, delivering Jesus to us in a miraculous way.  The Gospel of Luke is the same way, pregnant with truth that multiplies, one great truth after another, birthing to us gifts from heaven above.

We’ve already made it clear that Mary would be appalled if she knew that people worshiped her.  She is, in actuality, a model of the true worshiper - who worships the only One worthy to be worshiped.  She is not the worshiped, she is the worshiper.  And now, at this point in our text, she is literally pregnant with the truth…and the life!  The Holy Spirit comes over her, overshadowing, planting the sinless seed…and it shows.  She travels to see her cousin Elisabeth, also filled with the Spirit and having a miracle pregnancy of her own.  They are just normal ladies, but miraculous things are going on inside of them.

Though we are careful not to worship Mary, and we see what care God took in not suggesting some superhuman qualities to her, we now see the Holy Spirit bearing much positive fruit from which we can be challenged.

I want to show you some things that we learn about worship, praise, and thanksgiving, from Mary. 

Notice the attitude of worship.  Mary is a perfect illustration of worship from a right heart.  It’s the attitude of gratitude.  Look today at Luke 1…

Internal

Worship is internal. You will notice in verse 46 that Mary mentions her soul.

In verse 47, her spirit.  These two words are pregnant with truth!

Most Christians today worship more with their mouth than anything.  But down deeper than her mouth, down deeper than her lips was her soul and her spirit.  Those terms really are interchangeable in the Scripture; they have to do with the inner person.  All of her mental faculties, all of her emotional feelings, all of those elements of her being on the inside are called together like the instruments in a great orchestra that come together in a crescendo of praise.  Worship begins with an attitude.  Else, it’s not real.

External worship is shallow, superficial observance, and is intolerable to God.  Isaiah 29:13 says, "This people draw near Me with their mouth and with their lips they do honor Me, but have removed their heart far from Me."  That is a dishonor to God.  Jesus said God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  It has to rise from deep inside.

Internal…

Intense

Secondly, it's intense.  In verse 46 she says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord." The word is megalynei, mega. It’s pregnant with truth!  In other words, it means to enlarge, to magnify, to cause something to swell, or to grow, to extend.  It's used with being loud. There’s intensity.

And then the word "rejoice" in verse 47, agallia. This word is rotund itself.  It means to be overjoyed, and overflowing.  It’s like joy that is pregnant and delivering, birthing more joy.  Christmas is the new thanksgiving!

Worship that begins on the inside is not something you have to induce on the surface.  And you don’t have to work harder to make it more intense and powerful.  It releases itself naturally without human effort.  I don't know about you but I don't have to hear moving music to sort of emotionally and psychologically mellow me out to worship God.  It needs to be something deeper than that.  I don’t need an organ to work up a fever.  I don’t need drums and guitars to get my blood pumping. If that speaks to anything it’s to our flesh.  The churches that have done the most to try to put worship-inducing architecture together have the least real worship going on. Worship is something that comes out of the heart. It's not something you induce.

And you will notice that the music that we present here is not music that's intended to do something to your emotions. It's music that's intended to do something to your mind.  It's music to make you think, not just make you feel.  We want you to think about the great, pregnant truths so that you can worship God on the basis of the things that are true about Him. That's worshiping in truth as well as spirit.

You know, you can travel all over the world and you'll see idols and shrines to Mary everywhere.  I mean, I've seen them in churches, cathedrals, in houses, hotel rooms, restaurants, along the highways, in the most remote places.  This is a result of the Catholic Church exalting Mary, saying that she was immaculately conceived, that she was living a sinless life, that she was a perpetual virgin, that therefore because of her sinlessness she didn't die but was ascended into heaven, called the assumption of Mary.  They teach that she is now the queen of heaven and that she is the co-redemptrix with Christ.  All of this is foreign to Scripture, none of this is in the Bible at all and it all convolutes the true understanding of Mary.  Mary is not one to be worshiped. Mary is one who was the true and pure worshiper of God.  Here she is intensely magnifying God, nothing superficial about it.  There's nothing induced about it.  It is all spontaneous.  It is not generated by the outside circumstances which were actually foreboding for her. It rises up from inside with great intensity.

Read the first chapter of Malachi, and God indicts the Jewish community, because they were bringing him polluted sacrifices.  Instead of bringing the spotless lamb, they were bringing the lame ones.  They were offering God the worst of their flock.  Their whole worship, all their sacrifices was a travesty of superficiality, and so God says, "You don't think that pleases Me, do you?  You don't think I'm accepting that, do you?  Try offering that to your governor when it's time to pay your taxes and see how he likes it.  If he wouldn't accept it, do you think that I'm going to accept it?"

The prophet Amos, sent by God to expose and denounce the apostasy and hypocrisy of Israel said essentially the same thing in Amos 5.  Speaking for God he says, "I hate your feasts, I despise your festivals and your ceremonies.  And I don't want your burnt offerings, your meat offerings.  I don't want your songs, stop singing your songs, stop playing your harps, it's making me sick.  It's all so superficial and so shallow."

And then there was the prophet Isaiah in chapter 1 who does the same thing.  He asks, "To what purpose is all of this stuff you're doing?  I'm full of your burnt offerings and rams and fat of dead beasts. I don't delight in the blood of bullocks, or lambs, or goats.  Don't bring anymore oblations to me.  Your incense is an abomination.  I am weary of it all."  And He goes on indicting them for their superficiality.

In contrast to all that kind of stuff was Mary, who loved God down deep in her heart and who knew the truth about God and who knew her God well. In response to this great blessing of God to make her the mother of the Messiah, she just bursts out in praise and it isn't just that she's thankful for what God is doing for her, but what's going to happen in the whole world through the Messiah's arrival.  She's filled with joy and her praise is internal and intense.

Incessant [pregnant everyday, always growing]

It’s habitual.  “Magnify” in verse 46 is a present progressive tense verb of continuous action.  Here is someone who is in the flow of life praising God in an unbroken fashion.  This isn’t just thanksgiving, but thanksLiving!  Fluctuating circumstances do not impact true worship because no matter what happens circumstantially that doesn't change God, right?  That doesn't change His Word. It doesn't change His purposes.  It doesn't change His promises.  It doesn't change our responsibility.  That's why the apostle Paul said, "In everything give thanks."  You know, the circumstances of life may be going DOWN like this, but your attitude ought to be going UP like this, because nothing that is eternal changes.  It flows on, uninterrupted.  Paul said he had learned whatever state he was in to be content.  If I live, I live for the Lord.  If I die, I die unto the Lord.  Whether I live or die, I'm the Lord's.  Nothing ever changed that, it was unwavering.

If worship for you happens on Sunday morning only, it doesn't happen.  It should be a way of life in which you view everything.  Like David said, "I have set the Lord always before me."

So, worship is internal, it's intense and it's incessant. 

The 4^th thing.  What is the final word starting with “I”.  I can’t think of one other than to say there’s No “I” in true worship. Only humble people worship.

Proud people can't worship God; they're too busy worshiping themselves.  And I mean, right at the beginning of the Ten Commandments God said, "You shall have no other gods."  And the dominant god, competing for the throne of divine rule, is you.  True worship can only come from a humble heart. That's why James 4:6 says, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." 

You know, proud people can't be thankful because they never get what they think they deserve, no matter what they get.  Proud people can't be thankful because they constantly remember all the wrongs done to them.  Proud people can't be true worshipers of God because they want to strike back at everybody who offends them, so they've got this bitter edge.  Proud people find it very difficult to be filled with praise because they constantly reflect on how they've been mistreated, even by God.

Jesus said:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit." That means to realize you’re nothing.  "Blessed are those who mourn," weeping over their nothingness. 

"Blessed are the meek,” or humble.  These words of Jesus are pregnant with truth.

Look at Mary in verse 48, "He hath regarded the low estate..." 

And now all generations will remember me and how I was blessed…I don’t deserve any of it.

Now, let's look at the object of her worship.  Mary is saying "God is my Savior," not just from illness and sickness and trouble in life.  God is my Savior from sin.  This child will be named Jesus, Matthew 1:21, because He would save His people from their sin.  Mary is worshiping God as a sinner because she is so thrilled that God will save her from her sin.

So, the attitude of worship, we've seen, and the object of worship, we've seen.  The last element of worship that Mary illustrates is the reason or the motive for worship.  She worships Him for three reasons: 

Reason number one: What God is doing for her.

v. 49        Worship starts right there, folks, it really does.  It starts with what God is doing in your life. 

Secondly, the reason for her worship was what God would do for others.

v. 50        Here she quotes Psalm 103 and verse 17. 

Thirdly, she worships God because of what He's done in the past.  v. 51-55

This is a typical Jewish approach to worship.  You find this all through the Psalms.  She went back over history. 

Mary saw a history of mercy in the past.  She was experiencing mercy in the present.  And she saw mercy for generations to come.  Mary is saying, God who promised way back in Genesis 12 salvation to and through Abraham is bringing that salvation to pass by His mercy in my life, He'll do it in generations to come, He has done it in generations past and He will continue throughout the future.  God is a saving God and that great saving purpose of God will reach its culmination when Jesus goes to the cross to die and bear the sins of all people. 

So this hymn of thanksgiving is a sweeping example of how it is that we should praise and worship God.  It’s pregnant with truth!  And so are you.  Col. 1:27: “Christ in you, the hope of glory!”