The Great Reversal (Luke 1:51-53)

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Alright, you can go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Luke. Chapter One, we will continue in the Magnificat. Mary’s prayer of praise will be in verses 51 to 53 this morning, Luke 151, to 53 as you’re turning there, everyone loves the Cinderella story. We know that for sure. Now, why is it that we all like Cinderella stories? It’s because we kind of like when the world gets flipped on its head, at least for a moment. We like the rags to riches kind of story, or we like when the weak triumph over the strong in March Madness, or something like that. We want to believe that an oppressed scullery maid can marry a prince, or that a small market team that doesn’t make salary cap or anything like that. Can, you know, through some shrewd moves in developing their farm system or whatever, defeat the Juggernaut spenders in the big market city. And we especially like that when there are hints of injustice on the one side, right when there’s a wicked stepmother as part of this process, or the Juggernaut spenders have, you know, 115 allegations of financial impropriety against them that’s being investigated right now. That’s the only reason they were able to buy all these players, or whatever it might be. So that is, we love a Cinderella story, not so much because the world gets flipped on its head, actually, but that a world that’s standing on its head finally gets flipped right side up, and that is what Jesus came to do. Jesus came to show us that might won’t go on making right forever, that the rich won’t go on exploding the poor forever, that the wicked won’t go on prospering for ever. It is kind of our big idea today, by the way, the reversals that are are coming here. I’m giving it to you up front because we’re, you know, it’s not going to make a ton of sense. We got to put some meat on its bones, but I want you to have it in your in your mind as we’re reading. The big idea is that Jesus is flipping an upside down world right side up. And so we should be too. We should be engaged in this same work. And this is what Mary celebrates in her prayer of praise, three reversals that are happening that Jesus has come to effect a moral reversal, a social reversal and a material reversal, and we’ll see them each. Let me read our whole passage for us, and then we’ll dive into the first reversal. I’m actually just going to read the whole prayer because it’s not that long. So we’ll just get going through our passage, beginning in verse 46 and Mary said, My soul glorifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed for the Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. And then here’s our passage. This morning. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty. Alright, let’s, let’s look at the first reversal from verse 51 right there, the moral reversal. Just a little bit of context. In case, this is the first week you’ve come, or you don’t remember where we’ve been in the prayer so far. Remember that God saw Mary in her humble state. When the angel Gabriel comes, makes the Annunciation, you know that she is going to bear the Messiah. So God saw her in her humble state, she says in verse 48 when she was poor, when she was oppressed, as we’ll talk about, and God saw and he acted in her life to exalt her. That’s what she celebrated so far. Now it’s like the camera lens widens, so all of a sudden we can see that this God seeing the humble and exalting them that that includes many people. It’s not just Mary. What God did for Mary. In fact, he is doing for all God fearers, which is where we ended last week. His mercy extends to those who fear him. So yes, His mercy extends to all those who fear Him, and He performs mighty deeds for them as well. But that kind of raises our next question right there, at the start of verse 51 he has performed mighty deeds. Now has God done? Is God doing, or will God do mighty deeds? And of course, the answer is yes, yes, and absolutely yes. So Mary casts a glance backward here. God has done it before. He’s performed mighty deeds before. But of course, she’s praying this right after the announcement of the birth of Jesus, and so she knows that with Jesus, this Promised Deliverer that’s growing in her womb, God is doing it. A new way, and God’s not finished yet. Of course, he’s still not finished even yet. So grammarians actually call this this tense right here in verse 51 a prophetic aorist. Aorist is the past tense in Greek, but it’s a prophetic past tense in In other words, she’s talking about the future, but it is so certain that God will do this that we could actually use the past tense. It’s like when you you know, you get to the last three minutes of a game, or something like that, and your team is up, and they’re up by enough that you know it’s over, and you go, they’ve done it. They have done it. It’s perfect. It’s finished already, even though it’s not quite finished. That’s what’s happening here, even though we’re talking centuries in advance of God finishing it. Why? How do we know that? Because we keep coming back to it, chapter one, verse 37 for no word from God will ever fail. And so Mary knows this is as good as done. So what is it, though that God has done is doing and will do? And the answer is, perform these mighty deeds with his arm. Now, arm is maybe a strange word here, and I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re thinking, God is Spirit. He doesn’t have a body, so how could he possibly have an arm? Well, we use the word arm a lot in Scripture. You’ll see it a lot as a the visible working of God’s power, like when God reaches out and does something even though he’s not reaching out physically, it’s the visible working of his power. The supreme example of this in the Old Testament, where the word gets used most often, is in the Exodus. So here’s Deuteronomy 434, Moses talking about what God has just done, bringing Israel out of slavery in Egypt. And he says this, has any God ever tried to take for himself one nation, out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, we could almost say, mighty deeds, like all the things the Lord, your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes. So that’s what we should have in mind, a display of power like the Exodus, when we talk about God’s mighty deeds, and we talk about his outstretched arm, and you can almost see Mary thinking through this, and she’s asking questions that we should be asking of ourselves right now too. Okay, God did that then, right? He parted the Red Sea. He turned the Nile to blood. He whatever else it was. Does God have any less power now than he had then? Does God care any less or Is he any less committed to his covenant people now than he was then? No, of course not. Then we should expect this still. We should expect this still, especially in Christ, and that’s what Mary is seeing. But Mary’s not making this up either, that the arm of the Lord is especially outstretched in this moment, she’s she’s probably drawing on Isaiah, actually, is this the point Isaiah makes. Isaiah, chapter 53 verse one begins, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Is a rhetorical question. The answer is clearly no one. But that’s interesting. To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? And Isaiah is saying, Well, really not anyone yet, because we haven’t really ever seen God’s arm truly, because the invisible has not yet been made visible until now. And that’s point. It’s again, Isaiah 53 verse one, you know Isaiah 53 really famous chapter in the Old Testament. It’s such a clear prophecy of Christ. It you almost can’t believe that it was written 700 years before he was born, one of those places where you go, Okay, I think God might be real, because this is crazy, because what? But we know we’re talking about Jesus here, right? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? The very next sentence is he grew up before him like a tender shoot. He grew up before him like a tender shoot. So the arm of the Lord is a person, and then we know what that person, what happens to him? Verses five and six, he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed. In other words, the arm of the Lord. In Isaiah, 53, one, that should be a capital A, because that’s Jesus. Jesus is the arm of the Lord. Jesus is the visible working of God’s power, because in Christ, the invisible word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And we have seen visible right? We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth, John 114 and
notice what’s happening. Remember we said the exodus is the supreme. An example of God’s outstretched arm until Jesus and Moses is going well. This is crazy. Never before has a god taken one nation out of another nation. But think about what happens in Christ. It’s when God takes for Himself a people from every nation and language and tribe and delivers us, not just from slavery in Egypt, but delivers us from sin and death and darkness that is might. But let’s not forget, just when we think of the second half of verse 51 that the exodus was great for the slaves, but it was bad for the Masters, and that was a tremendous reversal. You want to talk about, flipping a world on its head. That’s what happened in Egypt that day, on the day of the Exodus. In fact, Pharaoh is a poster child for that second half of verse 51 he is scared of those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. That’s Pharaoh absolutely proud in their inmost thoughts, meaning those who reject God. Moses comes to Pharaoh and says, hey, the Lord told me to tell you, Let my people go. And Pharaoh says, Who is the Lord? And he’s not asking for information there. Of course, he’s rejecting God. So those who are proud in their inmost thoughts are those who feel no need of God, those who feel no need of a deliverer, because they feel like they can rely on their own mighty deeds, mighty deeds. We’ve met some, of course, we see this throughout Scripture, what this looks like. We met a couple in Daniel even, right? Nebuchadnezzar feeling really good about his might. In fact, he gets so proud that the Lord humbles him, and he realizes that, after he’s given the mind of an animal for a period of time, and he goes, Okay, I see now or Belshazzar, who exalts himself and uses the Lord’s sacred vessels for his own orgiastic feast, and the Lord has him killed that night. It continues, of course, in the New Testament, when you get somebody like Herod Agrippa who receives praise as if he were a god, and the Lord strikes him dead right then and there. It continues, of course, into our lifetime, into the modern world. I think of Stalin, for example, Stalin who died with a raised fist that would be proud in your in most thoughts, right there, of course. And what happened to him? This, this great leader. I mean, his sculptured head now lies in junkyards across Russia. So you look at what happens to those who are proud in their inmost thoughts, and you think to yourself, thank goodness we’re not in positions of power, because I’m not sure I would want to be Nebuchadnezzar or Stalin, except Well, we all struggle with pride in our inmost thoughts, don’t we? We all tend to rely on our mighty deeds. We trust in our performance. Maybe it’s our education, maybe it’s our experience, our winning personality, our and the irony of this word, of course, our gifts, which means somebody else gave them to us. They’re not from us. And this looks different ways for different people, like there’s a secular version of this, of course, where, where we, where we try to make our own way. Who is the Lord? I don’t need him, right? I’m going to define and actualize myself without reference to God, and, frankly, without reference to others, really, either. Oh, there is a danger there. And imma mention this a little bit of a digression, but because it’ll we’re going to head there in a moment here that that that that kind of self definition, self actualization ultimately leads to oppression and exploitation, because people then necessarily become tools, instruments for your self actualization project in every area, from romance to retail. You know where you’re going to get into a relationship with somebody, and their purpose then is to make you happy, and if they stop making you happy, well then they’re no longer an effective tool, and you can get a new one, or retail where we go look, I know that this is a sketchy supply line, and this was probably made with slave labor, but you know, I look really cute in these shoes, so I’m gonna go ahead. It was a great deal buy them anyway. You see what happens? Right? It just inevitably leads to oppression and exploitation, which is in itself a pointer to God, maybe not a proof of God, but a pointer to God, because we all know we shouldn’t exploit others, but you can ask yourself, why not? Like, really, why do you think you shouldn’t exploit other people? Because that is the history of humanity, right there. I mean, slavery has been practiced in absolutely every culture under the sun from the beginning of time until the church arrived on the scene. Complicated history there we can talk about. That another day, and yet we know there’s something in us that goes, Yeah, but that’s not right, okay, but it’s also a consequence of rejecting God because you’re proud in your inmost thoughts. It’s a consequence of nihilism, atheism, secularism. It’s a consequence even a paganism, where you know what are you doing? You’re serving a God, not because the God is worthy of worship, but because you want a good harvest that year. It’s all about me. If you think that’s wrong, okay, you need to ask yourself some questions about why. So there’s that secular bent to it, but it takes a religious guys also this trusting in our mighty deeds, trusting in our performance, where you look at yourself and you go, I’m so moral and so ethical that, of course, God would have to accept me. Of course I’m in this is what Jesus attacks in his parable in Luke 18, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. These two men who are in the temple, right the Pharisee just waltzes right up, you know, practically to the altar. The tax collector stays outside. He’s like standing in the doorway. The Pharisee gets up and he goes, I thank God that I’m awesome. You’re welcome, you know. And how does he know? Because he looks at his mighty deeds. I thank God I’m not like the tax collector. Because look at all of the things I do, look at my tithes, look at my scrupulous law keeping and all of that. So yeah, of course, I made it. And the tax collectors in the background beating his breast going, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And Jesus wraps up the parable by saying, for all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. That is the great moral reversal that Jesus effects it is not the proud, not the self righteous or the self made, but the humble who enter the kingdom of God. And so it’s not something that we can earn, but something that we must receive. So even now Humble yourselves, admit your weakness, your need, and see his mighty arm outstretched in utero in this passage, at least.
That’s the first reversal, the second reversal, a social reversal, verse 52 let me read it for us again. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. Now this only makes sense, of course, if God is scattering his enemies, those who are proud in their inmost thoughts, that word scatter, by the way, you can see where it shows up in Scripture. It’s always a military analogy. So this is like a panicked retreat from battle. Is what’s happening there. So he’s just defeated his enemies. If that happens, if you lose a big battle like this, that means that some people are going to lose their seats of power as well rulers. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with rulers. Of course, there are many wise, good leaders, even in Scripture, imperfect, yes, but good leaders like David. But I think we could also agree that again, just look at history, a pretty large subset of rulers would include those who are proud in their inmost thoughts, so that they’re not just rulers, but really oppressors, those who see their subjects as a means to self exalting ends. Again, what we saw with Pharaoh Nebuchadnezzar, people like that. We’ve seen it again throughout history. Slave owners, politicians who are running for vanities sake to get fame or fortune or whatever else it may be, factory owners allowing inhumane, unsafe conditions because their workers are just cogs in a machine. I mean, of course, there’s nuance here. Like, we gotta be some careful, some somewhat careful. I think it’s easy to just kind of reject, like, Well, anybody who has ever you know been in a position of management had to lay off people. Like, that’s just godlessness. Like, no, not necessarily. Again, that’s where the nuance comes in. Like, I don’t want to get into politics here, economics, that’s a little bit beyond my scope. The average company in the US, though, lasts 15 years, 15 years before it’s done, it’s bankrupt, it’s acquired whatever, something like that, and usually with razor thin margins. So yes, sometimes the choice that management faces is, do I lay off 10% of the workforce so the other 90% can keep their jobs, or do I keep that 10% and all of us will lose our jobs in three years time? Like it’s complicated again, glad we’re not in positions of power, but Mary, at least, is talking about the oppression peace, and you understand why, because you gotta remember that Mary is a poor peasant. We know she’s poor because of the sacrifice that she and Joseph bring after Jesus is born. So Leviticus 12 tells pregnant moms that they need to, after the birth of their child, bring a lamb and a dove, a lamb for the burnt offering, a dove for the sin offering. And then Leviticus 12 eight says, but if you can’t afford it, you can just bring two doves. If you can’t afford a Lent, guess what Mary and Joseph bring? Do. Doves. Okay, so they couldn’t even afford a lamb. In other words, that’s how poor they are. They’re also living under foreign oppression. You remember at this time? You know we’ve got things like the Zealots around Jesus selects one of them to be one of his disciples. Even the Zealots are the rebellion. Like they’re again, they’re trying to kick Rome out, and this is where, why there’s all this messianic fervor at this moment, because of the foreign oppression that they are under, that looks like Rome, of course, first and foremost. Now it’s just read for us the census. That’s where Rome, you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles away, just went, Hey, you all have to go somewhere else for a couple days, because we decided so. But not just Rome. I mentioned last week that Herod as well, who is not a Jew. And some of you asked me afterwards, was he Roman? He is not Roman. He was Idomian, if you need to know, which is right in that same kind of area. But his family converted to Judaism about 50 years prior for the sake of power, so that they could rule over the Jews, not because of some religious awakening or something like that, and they were very close allies of Rome. In fact, Herod had actually been kicked off his throne by the Jews, and then Rome came in and went, No, we like Herod because he likes us, and put him back. And by the way, not a good person. I don’t know if you remember where this story goes, but after Jesus is born, Herod has the boys of Bethlehem slaughtered so that he can take care of this upstart pretender to his throne. In other words, the hope for this reversal is strong for Mary in a way that it probably just doesn’t matter to us, which is why we struggle with passages like this. We live in a democracy, so if you don’t like rulers, you can just vote them out of office in a couple of years time, and we’re rich beyond all imagining, the wealthiest society in the history of the world. So we’re all going, I don’t know that we need to reverse anything. Seems okay to be right, but we get it like there is this justice bent in us because, of course, God’s moral law is written on our hearts, and that’s why we get so angry watching wicked stepmothers keep their step daughters from going to the ball, or why we root for the little guy. Whatever that means at that moment, like we should care about this. We should, we should care about it. Here, it happens sometimes, right? Somebody is a victim of injustice and and while they’re trying to get justice, you know, some multinational conglomerate just sends 18,000 lawyers to send a million, you know, motions or whatever, and just buries them in paperwork. And we go, that’s not right. We should care about that. We should care about that here. We should care about that around the globe as well, because there are people, our brothers and sisters in Christ, even, who are under oppression like this. We don’t just tune that out, get desensitized to it, the very least, we pray and see if there are ways we can support them. Certainly as we’re looking at a verse like this, if you are in a position of power, one of the application points is be really careful with your power. And as I say, I say that as someone who is in a position of power, I lead an organization, I have people underneath me, and all that stuff like Lord acton’s dictum has been proven right on more than one occasion. Power corrupts absolute. Power corrupts absolutely. So we’re supposed to be like little Christs. Well, what did Jesus say about power? Use your power to lord it over others, but to serve them. You want to be first, make yourself last the least, the servant of all. So we should never be using and always loving people. We don’t see the people underneath us as means to our ends, but ourselves as a mean to their ends that will require regular self examination. Of course, Am I guilty of any of this? But given our capacity for self deception, it means we also need to invite accountability and evaluation of the way we wield our power and to humbly accept input, even criticism. But even if you’re not in power, you’re not off the hook, because we should still act like little Christs. And Christ was committing, committed to helping the oppressed and the downtrodden, and so we can be too. God lifts the humble, like Mary and I said there, when we looked at verse 48 that should be all of us, right? We should all be humble, because we all recognize our spiritual state. If nothing else, is a humble state. In fact, we need to be humble if we’re going to enter the kingdom of God. Again. That’s the beginning of the beatitude. The Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. You want to enter the kingdom of heaven, you have to be poor in spirit. You have to recognize your spiritual poverty and the need for grace, and that’s what humility means. Of course, humility is believing, truly believing that it is all of grace. In other words, I didn’t earn this. I couldn’t possibly have earned this. But if that’s true of us, we couldn’t have earned this, if we don’t. Deserve this, then that means we can’t disdain those who haven’t made it in the same way that we have, especially if we’re dealing with any oppression or exploitation. I’ll give you an example. We support a ministry here called new name, which is ministry to sexually exploited women. There’s that word sexually exploited women. Now you might ask yourself, Well, why would we support a ministry that’s outreach to prostitutes effectively? And the answer is, because we couldn’t possibly disdain them for this. Because no one really chooses that life. There’s no six year old girl who says, When I grow up, I want to be an escort. So how do they end up there? We’re the main two drivers abuse, that would be the oppression we’re talking about here, and poverty, which is the oppression we’ll talk about in the next verse. So like, of course, we’re going to minister to those who, again, are in a different spot than we are. We can’t disdain them, but instead, actively work to lift them out of their circumstances. But let’s not forget, this is more than just a social reversal, because this is more than just social oppression. There is a spiritual oppression as well. I mean, what is the ultimate enemy that God scatters? It’s not Nebuchadnezzar, right? It’s Satan. It’s the powers of darkness. Colossians, 215 Paul describes Jesus’s triumph over powers. What does he say? Colossians, 215 it says Jesus disarmed the powers and authorities. He made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross. Well, what powers and authorities did he disarm?
Not Herod, not Rome. Rome was plenty armed right then spear and hand standing right at the foot of his cross. No He disarmed the spiritual powers of darkness. He triumphed over Satan and sin and death. And so one way we commit ourselves to serving the oppressed is to serving those who are humbled, spiritually, oppressed, spiritually. And I think a clear application for us in this then is that we must not hoard the gospel for people like us, we have a tendency to do that. Share the gospel with people who look like us, sound like us, act like us. We talk about again, nothing wrong with us. Yeah, they need the gospel too. Okay, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, they’re probably all going to be kind of just like you go out and share it with those who are ready to receive it, who are aware of their spiritual poverty, perhaps because they’re aware of their economic poverty. So one of the reasons why we’ve got the Christians against poverty debt center that we run here at Cityview, because these are people who are not fooling themselves into thinking they can make it on their own any longer. That’s why we supported outreach. York had the Christmas store just yesterday. It was a tremendous success. I got the report, by the way, it was beautiful. Like 100 families, 250 kids served this process, and they all got the gospel, they probably don’t have the same amount of money that most of us do here. It’s even why we support something like international friendships. Nick Miller, one of our missionaries, who’s also here in our congregation. There he is. Yeah, why? Because these are people who haven’t necessarily heard the gospel, people from other cultures, from other religious backgrounds, who need to hear this for the first time, but yet they also don’t look or sound like us, and so this is why we do it. Go out and share the gospel with those who are ready to receive it. Second reversal, then the third and last reversal that we’ll talk about, verse 53 the material reversal. Question mark is not a mistake, by the way. We’ll get to that in just a moment. Verse 53 he has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty. Well, that one’s smart, doesn’t it, because you’re rich. Is God against wealth? And if he is, is there any hope for any of us? And our temptation is to just explain it away, but maybe don’t explain it away too quickly. Let me just sit in that for a moment. God just said, Mary has said, God sent the rich away empty and you are likely rich. In fact, this is a main theme in Luke’s gospel. You know why it’s a main theme in Luke’s gospel? Because it’s a main theme in Jesus’s ministry. So we should pay attention to it. I would think man mentioned Matthew five already blessed are the poor in spirit, the Beatitudes. Do you know how Luke has. In his gospel. And again, that is God breathed word to us. Luke has it as blessed are the poor period, Blessed are the poor. And in case you thought, Well, yeah, but he means poor in spirit, look where he goes right after that. Luke 624, and 25 Woe to you, who are rich, for you’ve already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. No qualifiers attached. Doesn’t say godless, rich, no. Just says rich. At this point we go from there, of course, chapter 12, we get the parable of the rich fool who’s so wealthy he’s like, I gotta keep building more barns, store more grain. And God says, You fool, won’t you realize your life is going to be demanded from you this very night. What good are your barns gonna do then? And of course, we get Luke, chapter 16, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Rich Man doesn’t even get a name, by the way, because his whole identity was his money. So that’s it. All you need to know about him was he had money. He’s in hell, in torment, while Lazarus, the poor beggar who used to sit outside the rich man’s gate, where the dogs would come up and lick his open wounds, he is welcomed into Abraham’s bosom. And we need to ask why this shows up so often in Luke’s gospel. And the thing is, it’s not just money, but it is the attitude that wealth so often brings. And what attitude does wealth bring? Self sufficiency. Self sufficiency, pride. In other words, in our inmost thoughts, I’ve got no need for God because I’ve got a healthy checking account. That’s what we need to be wary of. And that is epitomized, of course, in the rich man. In that parable The rich man and Lazarus, he was so utterly self focused, even in hell. By the way, some people ask the question, how is it that God can send, you know, like infinite punishment for what was a finite crime? And the answer is, it’s not a finite crime. It’s an infinite crime. Because even in hell, we had this man, he gets into a theological argument with Abraham. Basically says to Abraham, you know, God’s wrong, right? Like he needs to do things differently. So there’s his pride against God, and then what else does he ask Abraham to send Lazarus as his servant? Still doesn’t see Lazarus as a person, just sees him as a means to his end. Darryl Bach says it like this, talking about the parable, He says the rich man’s self focus reflects his lack of faith and his spiritual insensitivity toward the God to whom he is responsible. Such self focus produces a lack of concern for one’s neighbor, which God condemns. Everything we’ve been talking about so far this morning, this is all the opposite of gospel humility. Of course, gospel humility means we love the God who saved us with heart, soul, mind and strength, and as a result, we love our neighbor as ourselves, because we’re already loving ourselves. We love our neighbor the same way. Why? Because he loved us when we were undeserving of it. So we love others even if they are undeserving of it. Again, a passage like this calls for self examination. Are you a rich fool? Are you trusting in riches to save you, to prove your worth or provide fullness in your life? Like we sing, Christ is enough, what we really mean is, Christ is good. And I’d like a new iPhone, and if you maybe choose between the two, well, let’s just not ask the question. Now, this is grander than just an individual question. Of course, I think Mary is thinking about this on a national scale, because that runs like a thread throughout the Old Testament. In fact, it shows up in Hannah’s prayer, and remember, Mary is almost just, she’s just plagiarizing Hannah’s prayer. Okay, let me actually read some of Hannah’s prayer here. So if you don’t remember first, Samuel, one and two, Hannah, she’s a barren woman, and she asks God, God opens her womb. Again. God doesn’t always do that, but he does for Hannah, she gives birth to Samuel, who ends up being a leader of Israel. But this is right after Hannah discovers that she’s pregnant, she prays this prayer. My heart rejoices in the Lord. Sounds just like the beginning of our prayer here, in the Lord, my horn is lifted high. Horn is a symbol of strength, and usually of the king, actually. So that’s weird. It’s like she’s almost got big here, like we’re maybe talking about the nation. My mouth boasts over my enemies. And you’re going, what enemies? Your enemy was barrenness. What are we even talking about? Again, she’s got a national view here. My mouth boasts over my enemies, For I delight in your deliverance. There’s no one holy like the Lord. There’s no one besides you. There is no rock like our God. Do not keep talking so proudly. There. Is the pride issue again, or let your mouth speak such arrogance, For the Lord is a God who knows and by him, deeds are weighed. And she goes on a little bit later, those who are full hire themselves out for food, but those who are hungry are hungry no more. That’s interesting. Mary says that the Lord sends poverty and wealth. He humbles and he exalts. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. It’s like all of our reversals, right? Are all here in Hannah’s prayer as well. But it’s so interesting because it doesn’t fit Hannah’s circumstances, but it is her national hope, like she sees in her circumstances, a grander issue the Philistines that are oppressing and exploiting Israel at this time. And so in the same way, I don’t know that Mary’s, you know, talking about the rich land or in town. I mean, maybe, but she’s talking about Rome. She’s talking about Herod. And so again, if we’re gonna apply this to ourselves today, we gotta think, what about us? Or maybe, what about capital U, capital S, put a capital A after it too. Most powerful country on Earth, the richest nation again in the history of the world, from those to whom much is given. Much is expected. We as a society, have been given much so that we can affect these reversals, so that we can lift the poor, so that we can be generous, be little Christs. So it’s always worth asking, and probably asking in community, because of our tendency towards self deception, what does your spending say about your heart?
And just so we’re clear, your spending tells you what you need to know about your heart. Jesus said that in Matthew chapter six, where your treasure is there will your heart be also. So look at your spending, and you will see what you love. Look at your spending. What does it tell you about what you love? Great question to ask right before Christmas, right? I mean, even kids here in the room, you’re all like, I’ve been ducking this whole sermon. No, what do you want for Christmas? Kids like, Do you want more Jesus or do you want more junk? Matthew six reminds us that we can’t separate the material from the spiritual that’s why there’s the question mark in the outline. Is this material reversal, or is this a spiritual reversal here? Kind of both? Money is a diagnostic test. It’s an imaging test, right? Like an MRI, an MRI shows you what’s inside of you. That’s what money does. Money doesn’t put anything inside of us. Money reveals what’s inside of us already reveals, maybe that you’re trusting yourself and not God and proud in your inmost thoughts, in which case it reveals your spiritual need. We see that in the first half, because I’ve spent all this time on he sent the rich way empty. But what about the first part? He’s filled the hungry with good things. What does it mean when it says that God fills the hungry with good things? Are we just talking about food and toys? I mean, sure, we’re talking about those two. Psalm 107 verse nine, I think, is what Mary’s quoting here. He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. That’s talked about, by the way, Psalm 107 it’s talking about the wilderness generation. They’re wandering around in the desert. God provides water from a rock. He provides Manna and quail like from a heaven. Basically, yes, it is that, but it’s so much more than that, like the physical helps us make sense of the spiritual. One of the reasons we hunger and thirst is so that we have words to describe what’s going on inside of us spiritually. Psalm 42 one and two As the deer pants for streams of water. So my soul pants for you God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? The poor need more and better than food and clothes and shelter. They need Jesus. They need to be lifted out of their spiritual poverty, first and foremost. And so there is no better gift than we can offer this Christmas, than the gospel than Jesus. So share him. Share him this Christmas. That’s why we’ve got invite bags over in the library for you to take because only Jesus will satisfy. Jesus Himself, says as much John chapter four, when he’s talking to the Samaritan woman, he says, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. This makes sense. Then, right of what we’ve been talking about, wealth isn’t the problem. Spiritual pride is, and so money isn’t the answer. Spiritual food is. So let me ask you, what are you. Eating and drinking now, figuratively, that you think will satisfy you, so that you don’t love God or don’t love your neighbor, as you should remember, this is a future prayer, so it’s talking about the glory to come. The Hungry will be filled in glory, and the rich will be sent away empty. So choose really wisely, because only one of those lasts eternally. You know, you know you will thirst again with anything else you have never bought anything for yourself that satisfied your soul. You have never had a sexual encounter illicit or illicit that satisfied your soul. You never gotten a promotion, a new job title that satisfied your soul. It always leaves you thirstier. If I can take an illustration from the winter months, you know how your lips get dry and what is it you want to do all the time? Then lick your lips. Does that help? No. Makes it worse, right? Even drier, even more cracked. That’s what we do. When we try and use these things to satisfy our thirst, we leave our souls cracked and dry. So drink deeply of Jesus. And by the way, we need to drink deeply of Jesus if we’re going to do any of this, because we are all upside down, and only Jesus can flip us right side up. We are all bent inward, seeking to please ourselves. So like, what will make us willing to yield our power and serve, or to yield our wealth and give generously, or to yield our spiritual pride and humble ourselves. It is this and only this. Jesus, being in very nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. That’s what we celebrate at Christmas, by the way. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, gave him the name that is above every name. Though rich, Jesus Christ became poor for you, and though King, King of kings, and Lord of lords, in fact, he became a servant for You, though he is himself the resurrection and the life he died for you dwell on that, and You will soon have Christ’s mindset, no more selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, valuing others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. Jesus has flipped, is flipping, and will flip an upside down world, right side up. And so we should too, like we get to, we don’t have to. We get to participate in Christ putting all things right. What a privilege that is, and the gospel should make us want to so humble yourselves. That’s the moral reversal, serve the lowly. That’s the social reversal, lift the poor. That is the material reversal. And all this, as you drink deeply of Christ, who is your life, let’s pray to him now.