6/7/20 Luke 1:39-56 “God Always Keeps His Promises!”

05 Jun 6/7/20 Luke 1:39-56 “God Always Keeps His Promises!”

6/7/20  Luke 1:39-56   “God Always Keeps His Promises!”

Some of you may have realized by now that I really stress having a prayer life.  I don’t think that there is anything more important to do than to pray.  Probably the main reason I say this is that Jesus commands us to pray.  And if Jesus commands us then that is good enough for me.  And if He commands us, then He has some good reasons as to why we should pray and pray all the time.  That is where we are going today.  Now some of you may say that this is a passage for Christmas and you wouldn’t be wrong.  However, many of the passages we consider to be seasonal, really apply all the time.  The Bible really packs in a lot of material in as few words as necessary.  Maybe pastors like myself should heed this also.  So, let’s take a look at why you should be praying all the time.

Do you remember the Dr. Seuss tale “How the Grinch Stole Christmas?”  Remember how the Grinch couldn’t understand why everyone sang, feasted and celebrated with the giving of presents?  They were happy even after he stole all the presents.  They just kept on singing and celebrating.  So why was everyone so happy at Christmas?

Also have you ever found yourself like the grinch?  I have gone to church on Christmas Eve with a heavy heart but the people soon shake me out of it with their singing and holiday cheerfulness.  Everyone is happy and smiling and a few minutes before I felt like weeping.  It just didn’t seem fair!

If we read the whole story of Mary, we might find the same thing.  Here we have a very young girl whose world has come crashing in on her.  She is a poor woman or young girl who has no social standing.  She has no rights.  Women only belonged to men.  She was considered little better than property.  She also finds herself pregnant and not married.  That could have given her the death penalty in those days.  Her betrothed has threatened to call off the marriage and leave her high and dry.  She was in a terrible jam.  She had no place to go and no one to turn to…or did she.

Now Mary was a woman of God.  She had been talking to an angel of the Lord.  As a matter of fact, the angel had laid out all that would happen and it all happened.  So now we get to today’s Scripture which is more than a song.  It’s a prayer.  Anytime we talk to God or about God, we are in a form of prayer.  It isn’t hard to do as you will see.

I think that the first thing that Mary tells us is that God makes you happy.  Right away she sings, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!”  As I have just said that all that could really go wrong for Mary had happened.  She really has no earthly reason to feel any kind of joy.  But she starts out by saying she glorifies and rejoices.

One of the sad things that has happened to our Scriptures, and I’ve mentioned this before, is that we have really watered down the meaning of many words.  And here we have it again.  Too often we just read over these words and they have no real meaning.  First, we have glorify.  In our context this meant to exult, worship, laud and praise.  When Mary or us for that matter, glorify God, it means to hold Him up in the highest esteem possible.  Too often we just think we can nonchalantly glorify God.  We think we can kind of skip over this.  It’s not that big a deal.  We are so very wrong here and Mary points this out.  We are to get excited and shout it out for the Lord.

This is because the next words she uses is to rejoice.  Just as a little sidebar here, I once knew a man who told me his wife would kill him if he ever rejoiced.  I was puzzled until I remembered his wife’s name was Joyce.  Hopefully that will loosen us up a little as we try to rejoice.  When we rejoice, we are to exuberate, we are to have great gladness and filled with triumph.  In other words, we are to get excited by the Lord.  After all, He is the great creator of everything you see and have.  His power is beyond our belief.  And so is His love for you.  You cannot out love Jesus and that is something to rejoice.  This is how you should be praying every time you go into prayer and this is just the start.

So, God makes us happy because He has a very special part for you to play.  Mary tells us that she is very humble but she knows what she will be doing.  When she gives birth to Jesus, then she will be remembered forever.  Not only will she be remembered forever, but Jesus will remember all those who hold up His name.  I think that we sometimes get caught up with the word fear when God uses it.  It might not be the best translation for our modern world because the ancients used it a little differently than we do today.  What they mean by fearing the Lord is a combination of fearing Him because He is so powerful.  This is especially true for those who don’t know Jesus yet.  In addition, it means that everyone is to have the very, very highest respect for Him in all that He does.  And we are to continue to do that even today.  We fear God with a reverent awe and fear.

I would also like you to notice Mary here.  There isn’t much written about her after this.  We hear about this family now, then when Jesus is about 12 years old and finally during his ministry at age 30.  Mary is the mother of Jesus.  She is the mother of God.  We can say so many nice and great things about her.  But no where do we ever read where she acquired great riches or great anything because of this.  We pretty much feel that she went on in life as a poor woman in a poor family.  The point I want you to notice here is that she didn’t get earthly riches for being the mother of God.  However, I would speculate that she earned a high place in heaven for this.  I think she would rank right up if not higher than Moses or David or any of the prophets.

This is the important part.  God has a special part for you to play in His plan.  Just like Mary, each and every one of us has a special and great role to play for Jesus.  We have to know that we probably won’t get our reward here, but there will be wondrous things waiting for us when we get to heaven.  Also know that we probably won’t be called on the be the mother of God again or to be a great leader like Moses or a great king like David.  Those things probably won’t happen for any of us.  Keep in mind that Jesus only does good and great things and He will only have you do great and good things.  You will be rewarded greatly for the jobs you do even if it’s only keeping the church clean or serving dinners to people or teaching our children.  Whenever you are working for Jesus, then you will be doing great things.

So, you will be happy doing the special things that Jesus has for you to do because I have found that this is always true if you are helping God.  But you know that isn’t the end of the story.  Because it just keeps getting better.  Mary goes on to sing about how the world will get turned upside down.  This happens all the time.  Mary talks about how God scatters the proud even if they are only proud in their thoughts.  Bad rulers were brought out of power by the power of God.  At the same time, He was doing all of this, He was helping to elevate the humble.  I want to tell you that we have a fantastic God.  Mary is singing about all the big people coming down but she doesn’t mention herself because, once again, she is humble.  What I mean here is that she was just this humble girl leading a very ordinary life and kaapow!  Her own personal world is absolutely turned upside down.  Nothing would ever be the same for her again but she isn’t going to complain about it.

But Mary’s world wasn’t the only thing that was going to change drastically.  The whole world was about to change.  This would take a couple hundred years or so but it changed.  The Romans persecuted the Christians for a long time before Christianity became the official religion of the empire.  The list of the wonderful things that Jesus brought to this undeserving world goes on and on.

The same thing holds true for today.  Many of you have had your world turned upside down by Jesus.  My life totally changed after I Jesus came into my life.  I know what Mary is talking about when she says God makes you happy.  I know that he had a special job for me to be a pastor and help others know Him.  I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do it but you know God.  He kept nudging me and nudging me until the next thing I know, I’m in front of you people preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ.  My world is upside down from being a postal worker.

And God still humbles the proud.  All you have to do is look around.  Last weekend we had a riot in Fargo.  Can you imagine a more ridiculous situation?  Someone was murdered hundreds of miles away and we end up with property damage here.  If people want to march to protest is ok but what happened is anything but ok.  What did those poor merchants in downtown Fargo do to deserve their stores broken up?  I will tell you what they did.  Nothing!  Absolutely nothing!  The leaders of this riot were just the opposite of humble.  They were so full of themselves that they took the law into their own hands to hurt innocent people.  They are no better than the original person who took a life in Minneapolis!  I would guess today they are sitting pretty smug thinking they got away with it.  But they didn’t.  Jesus Christ will bring them down in His timing and His place.  And how would you like to be standing before God with this kind of sin on your hands.  These people are not only in trouble in this world but they are in terrible trouble in the world to come.  You cannot just hurt policemen and others just because you feel like it.  I have no sympathy for them but I do hope that they will find Jesus before their time is up.  We are heading to the end times and things will get a lot worse, that is a promise from God.  However, God was and is able to turn the world upside down for your personal goodness and for the taking down of the people who know nothing about being humble.  But, I digress.

The last point I would like to make today is that Mary knows, she knows that God keeps His promises.  She knows this because she knows the Scripture.  She quotes a couple of things but I would like to add a little to this because it is so important that you know that God always, always keeps His promises.  I’m going to go through these rather quick and they are exciting so hang on to you hat.

God promises to love you unconditionally.  You will always have someone who loves you beyond the limits that this world has on love.  You cannot be so bad that God doesn’t love you.  We have already talked a little about with God you are never alone.  God will not leave you even if you reject Him.  He is still there.  He may not be as active but He is there just in case you change your mind.  One of His best promises is that once you are redeemed you have an eternal home in heaven.  You will have a mansion.  All the promises of heaven will be yours.  Another thing is that God formed you with an intention and purpose.  Therefore, He knows you intimately.  There is no one in the world who knows you better than God.  Therefore, you really have to allow Him to run your life.

Along with this is that you are exactly who the Bible says you are.  You are a child of God.  You are an heir to the throne and so much more.  God’s plan for you is to prosper you and not harm you.  This is huge.  God isn’t in the business of hurting His Children. If you think God is harming you, then look a little closer because you are harming yourself by not being obedient.  Also, when God calls you to come to Him for the first time, the risk involved in losing your old life will be much more than well worth it.  It will be well, well a million times well worth it.

I’ve told you this many times.  God will share all He has with you including His power.  You will have special strength that you can get from no other place.  God will share everything.  God will always hear your prayers.  That is a great promise plus He can move through these prayers.  This in turn gives us hope.  With Jesus there is always hope.  When you feel far away from God it’s because you have moved, not God.  Read your Bibles to help you to maintain your faith.  And finally, God will reveal Himself to you through the community of faith.  That is why it’s so important to be connected to a church, a real church that teaches the basics of the Bible.  These are just a few of the promises that God has made to you.  There are many, many more.

So the question becomes “What promises has God made to you that He hasn’t kept?” and “What have you done or not done so that you haven’t received them?”  I would like you to pray about this for the next few weeks.  See if you can get yourself into the habit of listening for God.  Still your mind and listen for His quiet word.  Jesus loves you so much that He talks to you all the time.  Please learn to listen and hear the wonderful words and promises of Jesus.  He will never fail you.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.