Word & Deed: Magnify

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Word & Deed, We are Worshipers: Magnify
with Tiffany Aicklen

This sermon explores the importance of worship and examines Mary's song of praise in Luke 1 as a model for authentic and powerful worship. The message emphasizes that worship is relational, rooted in Scripture, magnifies the Lord, and can be a subversive proclamation of God's kingdom.

Key Points:

• Worship is essential: It floods us with hope, strengthens us, renews our strength, and reminds us of what is true.
• Worship is relational: It is a dynamic exchange between God and His people, where He reveals Himself and we respond in intimacy and truth.
• Worship is rooted in Scripture: Mary's song draws heavily from the Psalms and echoes Hannah's prayer, demonstrating the power of grounding our worship in God's Word.
• Worship magnifies the Lord: Mary's song focuses on God's greatness and His saving acts, not on her own circumstances or sacrifices.
• Worship is a subversive proclamation: Mary's song declares Jesus as the true Son of God and Savior of the world, challenging the claims of earthly powers and proclaiming God's ultimate authority.

Mary's Song as a Model for Worship:

1. Rooted in Scripture: Our worship should be grounded in the truth of God's Word, drawing inspiration and guidance from the Psalms and other biblical passages.
2. Magnifying the Lord: Our focus should be on God's greatness and His saving work, not on ourselves or our own needs.
3. Subversive proclamation: Our worship should boldly declare God's kingdom and His ultimate authority over all earthly powers.

The sermon concludes with a call to become stronger worshipers, both corporately and individually, allowing our hearts to overflow with praise and adoration for God.

Transcript

Church, good morning. Just celebrating the dinner that we hosted for foster youth transitioning out of the foster program and wanted to thank Natalie and just the crew, the team that showed up to serve and make that beautiful dinner happen and then also celebrating jubilation and all the fun that we got to have together and thankful to Erin and the crew and team that showed up and served all throughout that evening to make that happen for our family. 

Just really fun. I'm also celebrating that we've been in this theme of we are worshipers for the month of December. It's a fitting theme for the month of December and last week as Trav taught through these seven different biblical ways to praise and to worship it was like such a joy to watch our church kind of go yes and kind of take it on and just step into new kind of exuberance and worship in this room. I loved it and it's such an honor to be able to kind of continue in this series and talk about worship again this morning because worship is such a vital ingredient for our life in God and it's essential corporately. 

We have this incredible privilege of worship being a corporate thing that we do together as a spiritual family and it's also essential privately in our hearts before God. Travis and I were in like a leadership equipping thing this year with Dave Holden who leads churches in England. He's been here before and spoken on a Sunday morning. Dave and Liz were encouraging all of us as leaders to really not forget how important worship is, how essential it is to keep it central in our private lives, to keep it central in our corporate lives and so it feels like a joy for me this morning to pass that admonition on to you to our family to say hey this is essential, this is so important, it's important that we are really keeping this at the center and we're really desiring to grow as people in worship. Worship floods us with hope. 

Wouldn't you all agree with me? We come in here on a Sunday morning and we start to sing truths about who God is and our spirits begin to be flooded with hope. Worship strengthens us. 

We see him rightly exalted, highly exalted. We begin to see ourselves and everything else rightly. It sets everything in place. It makes everything make sense. It reminds us of what is true. 

It lifts off the burdens that we're carrying. You come into this room, we begin to declare together. Some of us have more faith this morning than others and all of a sudden we start to feel lighter. The burdens of the world, the things we're carrying begin to lift off. Worship's powerful and it renews our strength. And in the Bible worship is relational. It's about this dynamic of God revealing himself to his people and his people seeing him and responding from a true, honest, intimate place. It's a relational thing. In Psalm 46 through 8, it's saying about God that he doesn't delight in sacrifice or offering, but he's given us an open ear. 

How incredible is that? He's relational. And he isn't this distant God that wants to be appeased. 

He isn't pleased with empty ritual. He's after our hearts. He wants relationship with his people. And so he welcomes that relationship in many forms, in petition, in thanksgiving, in song, in obedience, in complaint even, in lament, in repentance, in remembrance. These are all things that are expressed physically and verbally and God is up for it all. And Christmas is such a worshipful season. There's no other season that has more songs written for it. 

And it's right and it's fitting as we remember the gift of what God has given us in the sending of his Son for our freedom that we would be growing in worship in the month of December, that it would be welling up out of our hearts that we would have full hearts of worship towards God. And I am a mom of five daughters. For the last couple of weeks, I've been saying to people, my brain is scrambled eggs. I have been using the meme of like SpongeBob SquarePants like burying himself in sand to describe the feeling that can happen at Christmas time when you're trying to pull everything off. There's so much to remember. And the other mom in the room wake up in the middle of the night and go, I forgot cousin so-and-so's gift. And yet the reason why we're giving all these gifts is because we've been given such a tremendous gift. And really our one job in December is to remember that. It's to have things well up out of that place of remembering how generous God has been to us, what he has given to us in Jesus, and what would overflow from our hearts because of that. So I'm excited to look at the first Christmas song ever written. 

Maybe I'm making that up, but I'm semi-confidently saying that. The first Christmas song ever written by Mary, Jesus' mother. I was joking with Travis that this is the second time I'm talking about Mary this year. And we decided that every time a passage contains things about weeping and gnashing of teeth, he gives it to Glenn Power. Thank you, Glenn Power. And every time the passage includes pregnancy, he gives it to me. So we're going to look at Mary's response to God when he revealed that she would become pregnant with his son, the long-awaited Messiah. And I want us to particularly pay attention to her surrender. Her surrender is staggering. 

And then I want to look at the song that she's saying, this Christmas song, the song of worship. And I want to draw our attention to three things. The first being that her worship was rooted in Scripture in a really beautiful way. The second is that her worship magnified the Lord. And the third is that her worship was a subversive proclamation. I think I'm quoting Travis when I say like, Mary's song was a punk rock song. It was not a pretty nice sweet Christmas lullaby. 

It was punk rock and I love that. So let's get into the story. Luke 1, 26. If you have your Bibles, you can turn there if you don't. And there's a Bible in the pocket in the seat in front of you. 

We would love for you to take that home as a gift. And here we go. It's on the screen. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, greetings, oh, favored one, the Lord is with you. 

But she was greatly troubled at this saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. 

And of his kingdom, there will be no end. And the first question Mary has is how. Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I'm a virgin? 

How is this going to come about? And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called Holy, the son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. 

Let it be to me according to your word. Whoa. And the angel departed from her. So here we go. Little bit of an unexpected day. Surprise. 

You're pregnant. Surprise. You're having a king. Surprise. You're having an eternal king. A little bit life altering, a little bit surprising. Mary was asked by this angel to really surrender the entire trajectory of her life to give over her body, her life, her plans to the will of God, to this miraculous plan he had cooking up. 

She was asked to give her ordinary daily life, her normal life over to God. And the only pushback we see, which I don't even think is pushback, is just this how. Like, how is this going to happen? And the angel answers that God's going to do it. God's going to bring it about. 

You don't have to worry about that because nothing is impossible with God. What a great line that is. And Mary then immediately says, yes. 

Yes. She says, amen, which means so be it. She says, let it be done. Let it be done to me according to what you have said. She calls herself the Lord servant. 

She offers herself as a handmaiden of the Lord, which just the picture that evokes in my mind is someone who is like close to a king waiting on them a hand and foot. What can I get you? What can I bring you? How can I help? Her heart posture is one of surrender and submission. And I was even thinking about that word submission, submission, which means sub means under mission to come under a bigger mission, which is what we instantly watch her do. Yes. I will come under your mission. 

I'll be a part of that. Reading on in verse 39, I love this scene. Two ladies getting real excited about God's stuff. In those days, Mary arose and went with a pace into the hill country to a town in Judah. And she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. Here Zechariah and Elizabeth had been longing their entire lives for a child. They were in old age. They were way past the point of having a child. And miraculously, an angel appeared to Elizabeth said she was going to have a child. She believed and said, yes, her husband didn't believe and was made mute until the day the child was born. So here Mary stepping into the house with the silent man who didn't believe and the loud woman who did believe. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was instantly filled with the Holy Spirit. 

How good is this? And she exclaimed in 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? Like, what an honor. 

I mean, I always feel like, be a friend like Elizabeth, you know, who's like, blessed, look at how blessed you are. You believed God. Look at how blessed you are. God's doing things in your life. I love it. She's filled with the Holy Spirit. 

John's leaping in her womb. It's crazy. Things are happening. And it says, 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. Elizabeth's calling this out of Mary. And in the middle of this just crazy moment of Holy Spirit filling and babies leaping and them declaring what God's doing in both of their lives, Mary bursts into song. 

And this is her song. 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 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 to his offspring forever. So the first thing I want us to notice is that her worship is rooted in Scripture. She was this humble young poor peasant girl. But we see as this song comes out of her heart that she was drenched in Scripture. She was drenched. She was saturated in the story of God. She knew what was going on. 

She got it like that. Mary's spontaneous song of worship is woven together with six different references from the Psalms. Psalm 34, Psalm 138, Psalm 71, Psalm 103, Psalm 98, Psalm 132. We can see threads from these Psalms woven into her songs. 

Even more beautiful to that than that to me is that this song is a direct draw from another biblical mother, another woman who was banking on a miraculous pregnancy and birth, Hannah, who had been barren for years, had been desperate for a child, had been contending in prayer over and over and over again. God, give me a son. Give me a son. Give me a son. 

If you give me a son, I'll give him back to you. And the Lord answered her prayer, and He gave her Samuel, and when he was born and old enough, Hannah handed him over to the Lord. It said that she lent him to the Lord. And as she lent him to the Lord, she prayed this prayer, and Mary's song sounds so much like Hannah's prayer. 

So Mary knew, she knew the old spiritual stories. She grew up going, I want to be like Hannah. And when she came to this pivotal moment in her life in God, what spilled out of her heart was Hannah's prayer, as she sang her own song of worship to the Lord. Hannah prayed, my heart exalts in the Lord. Mary sang, my soul magnifies the Lord. Hannah prayed, there is none holy like the Lord. Mary sang, holy is His name. Hannah prayed, talk no more so very proudly. Mary sang, He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. Hannah prayed, the bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength. Mary sang, He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. Hannah prayed, the Lord makes poor and makes rich. 

He brings low and He exalts. Mary sang, He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. This is a song rooted in scripture. This is a song rooted in the story of God. The true story that's being told in the world. Mary points back to, at the very end of her song, she points back to, this is all about what God spoke to our fathers at the very beginning. 

This is the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham, that he's still carrying out through his people in the world. She knew her place in the story of God. She recognized what he was doing. 

And when she was pressed and this crazy thing happened to her, what came out of her heart was surrender and a desire to see his story come about and her life used to those ends. Jesus said that true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth. And when we sing or say or pray words that are true, words from the scripture that have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, powerful things happen. Mary knew this. Scripture is our guide for worship that is in spirit and in truth. The second thing about Mary's worship is that it magnified the Lord. And I feel like a lot of talks that I've heard about Mary, it's very quick to go into like meditating on and thinking about what this cost her and kind of who she was and how this sort of upended her life and how this, maybe there is one reference about Joseph thought about not marrying her anymore. And so we think, oh, what would that have been like for her to lose that? And what would it have been like to explain that she was pregnant before she was married and the father was God? And what would have happened to her reputation? And you know, it's easy to like, like kind of tease that out and go, what was that like? 

And kind of make a lot of that. I don't see Mary making anything of that in scripture. She never mentions the cost to her. She never mentions her reputation. 

She never mentions what she has to give up in order to see this happen. And I think this is really profound. Her song declares how good and incredible and big God is. I don't hear any self-preservation coming from Mary. She's not trying to secure herself or save herself. She's declaring things about how God is God and how he's the Savior and how he's the one who regards his people, that he's mighty, that his name is holy, that he's merciful, and just, that he's generous and our provider, that he's loyal to his people and faithful. This is what's coming out of her as she's facing really probably the most costly thing she's ever had to say yes to. She's declaring who God is. She's not making it about herself like I tend to do. Of herself, she says she's of low estate, but she is a servant of the Lord, that she's a handmaiden of God, and how blessed, how blessed she is to be invited in, to be a part of the story, to play a part in the story, to come under the mission of and be a part of that mission. How blessed she is, what an honor it is, how incredible it is to be asked of that, to magnify means to make great, to blow up, to highly esteem, to extol, to celebrate, to glory or praise, to make increase. 

And I feel like through Mary's song of worship, we are watching her make increase God and decrease herself like John prayed. He must increase, I must decrease. And we will never magnify the Lord if we are yielding only to what we see, what we understand, what we want, or what we have planned. Magnifying the Lord is wanting more of what he sees, what he understands, and what he has planned. 

And we watch Mary make this quick pivot to, this is what I want. I want what God sees. I want what he understands. I want what he plans. I want what he's up to. And I can't believe that I get to be a part of that. 

Her song is all about what God's doing. It's even spoken in past tense. Like it's already done, and I love this. She's declaring he's already done this, he's doing this, and he will do this. He has performed, he has scattered, he has brought down, he has lifted up, he has helped, he has sent away, he has remembered. 

This is who he is, this is what he does. She's magnifying him. I feel like I can hear her saying like, what, what is he not worthy of? What would we not give him? What would we hold back from him? What is he not worthy of? What cost, what cost could make us step back from being a part of what God is doing on the earth? 

What is he not worthy of? She's declaring that she is like the most blessed woman, and that people forever will call her blessed because she gets to be a part of this story. Third, her worship is a subversive proclamation. She is proclaiming things about God, about his authority, about his power, and about what's going to happen to all other powers and authorities. Again, this is a punk rock song, guys. 

It's bold, it's brave. And in Luke 2, 8 through 19, we see that the angels come and they appear again to the shepherds in the fields. In verse 8, it says, and in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night, and an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. What was that like? We, you know, these stories become familiar. What was that like to have a host of angels appear and the glory of the God appear? What was that like? And they were filled with great fear. That's what it was like. And the angel said to them, fear not for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. 

Everyone gets in on this. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. And the angels go and the shepherds say, we have to go find this baby. We have to go share what the angels have told us. And they go and they find the manger and they find Joseph and Mary and they communicate to them. 

This is what happened to us. This host of angels showed up and this is what they said about this baby. And it says that Mary, she listened to the words. Again, she'd heard the angel herself. Now she's hearing similar but different words from a host of angels about her son. 

And it says that she treasured up all these things in her heart, pondering them. And I think what was happening for her, see at this time in Rome, Caesar Augustus had been adopted by Julius Caesar. And after Julius Caesar's death, he was officially declared to be a God. And from that time on, Augustus was considered son of God. And when Augustus seized power in Rome, he ended a bitter civil war and created what is now called pox romana, the peace of Rome. And because he brought peace to Rome, Augustus was its savior. And the rise of Augustus was declared throughout the Roman Empire as good news or gospel. The gospel story out of Rome was this. 

Caesar Augustus, son of God, our savior who has brought peace to Rome. And then the host of angels show up in the field and they say something different. I don't think it's accidental that they use the same four words that express the gospel of the Roman Empire to express the gospel of Jesus. The gospel announced to the shepherds was the good news that Jesus, the son of God, was the savior of the world and was bringing peace to the whole world. 

And that could only mean one thing, that Caesar Augustus was not. This is dangerous, right? This is dangerous. And Mary was the one declaring and carrying out this reality. The gospel of Jesus was a dangerous story to tell at this time. And Mary finds herself in the middle of these two gospels. We can't doubt that she heard these words, that she was treasuring up and pondering from the shepherds. And she was coming to conclusions about the story of two kings and how is this going to go down. 

Worship team, would you come? Her worship was subversive proclamation about who was in charge, about who was God, about who was saving the world, about who was bringing peace to the world. And it was a dangerous message. And it's still a dangerous message today. This song in the 80s was banned in Guatemala from being read aloud. 

Why? Because governments and authorities and people in positions of power don't like this song. They don't like to hear that there's a new king on the scene who is the king of kings and Lord of lords. They don't like to hear that he's an eternal king. It's upsetting. 

It's subversive. And when we worship, we're pledging our ultimate allegiance to God, to Jesus Christ, to his kingdom, to his ways. It's where we ultimately pledge our allegiance. We're proclaiming him to be the king above every other king, to be the Lord over every other Lord. We're declaring the one true and ultimate victor. Even in places of our life where we're not tasting some victory yet, we're declaring that God is the ultimate victor, that he's going to win the day, that he's keeping his promises, that he's going to do everything he said he's going to do, that he's going to have the victory at the very end. 

And we're watching and waiting for that to happen. That's what we're declaring as we worship. He's the one without rival, all thrones and dominions, all powers and positions. His name stands above them all. And when we come together, when we have the privilege of coming together as the family of God and declaring these things about him, we are strengthened in our spirit to live for God, to fight the good fight of faith. Our enemy, when we come together in this room and we begin to sing and declare these spirit-inspired truths about who God is, and we begin to magnify God, and he grows and is revealed to us in new ways, and he becomes bigger, and us and our problems become smaller. And we remember, oh yeah, he's the all-powerful one, he's the mighty one, he's the one that brings low people who need to be brought low, he's the one who raises up people who need to be pulled up, he's the one who provides, he's the mighty one. Things start to shift inside of us. 

We start living in our truer story. So I want to invite us this morning. I just think, ah, if there's anything I could ask for us for this month, Lord, make us stronger worshipers. Make our church strong in worship. 

Here in this room together, like what, this is a privilege, this is an honor, this is a joy to be able to join you in song, and make us strong in this God. Make us stronger in this. So stand with me. Let's go back into worship. Let's proclaim our victory. Let's proclaim his defeat of our enemy. Let's give him all the glory and praise.

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