Well, good morning. If you got a Bible, go ahead and grab it. Turn with me to Luke, chapter one. We are going to take a break from Second Corinthians for a few weeks. As we get into the new year, we'll talk about some spiritual rhythms to help us get into just maintaining our pursuit of Jesus during the new year. But we're going to take these next two weeks and series that we've entitled Christmas Songs. All right, how many of you like Christmas songs? You better raise your hand. All right. It's required. Okay. Christmas songs have been written for a lot of different reasons, unfortunately, because they should be written about Jesus, right? But we have a lot of Christmas songs these days written about a lot of different things. And I often think of, like, what caused somebody to write that song, right? When I think this one's easy. But all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, right? We have a six year old that has two wiggly front teeth right now. We might be singing that song in the next week. One of the saddest Christmas songs last Christmas, right? You guys know this song? Last Christmas I gave you my heart but the very next day you gave it away. This year to keep me from tears, I'll give it to someone special. Like, that's just awful. Like, it sounds like a terrible way to spend Christmas, right? And then, I mean, the easy one is Grandma got run over by a reindeer. I don't know what was actually happening that night that would cause that. But there's a lot of reasons that a lot of kind of extraordinary circumstances that I'm sure some songs are written, some not so extraordinary circumstances, pretty ordinary circumstances that cause Christmas songs to be written. But I want you to know that as Christians, the songs that were written at Christmas were absolutely written in extraordinary circumstances. Like these songs that were like, that came out of the birth of Jesus. The circumstances were not normal at all. People still praised. And what we're going to do over these next couple weeks is we're going to look at two different Christmas songs from Scripture. One that was written, written before Jesus was born, and one that was written just after he was born. And we're going to look at, like, why do Christians sing? Why do we sing these songs? Why is this such a significant thing in our world when everybody's frantic and stressed out and overwhelmed? Why can a Christian be joyful and still sing during these times? One of the most heart wrenching things for me as a pastor is to walk through and walk alongside people that are going through great pain in Our church. And that's been many of you as I look around this room. But one of my greatest joys as a pastor is to come into this room on a Sunday when I know the life that you've lived in the previous week. And I see the hardships and I know the hardships that people have been walking through. And I see them praising God to the top of their lungs. Many of them, their hands lifted high and surrender to God with tears streaming down their faces because in the midst of terrible pain, they can still praise their God. And that's so many people that many of you don't even know about in this room going through like agonizing relationships, family relationships, marital relationships, going through like dreadful sickness. Many people even like impending death coming. Yet they still praise what causes a person to do that? What causes a person in like overwhelmingly good times to praise God? Overwhelmingly bad times and confusing times and terrible circumstances? What causes a Christian to continue to sing and to praise God? Like, why would they do that? That's the question that we're going to wrestle with this morning as we look at Luke chapter one, at Mary's song. So this was the song that Mary, the mother of Jesus, when she was pregnant right before she's going to have Jesus. This is the song that comes from her lips. And this song, the content of this song, guys, my hope it might be an eye opener for some of you. I think for most of you in this room, if you've been around church, nothing's going to be like earth shattering this morning. My hope is that it's not just an eye opener, it's an eye lifter. Lift your eyes off whatever circumstances the Lord may has you in to put them on how great our God is. Because that's exactly what Mary's going to do here. So this song, some of you know it as Mary's song. If you grew up in a different religious tradition, you may know it as the magnificat, right? That's the Latin word for magnify. It shows up right here at the beginning. But that's what we're going to be looking at this morning. So Luke chapter one, starting in verse 46, I'm going to read the whole song and then we'll work our way back through it. Luke 1:46. 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 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. So it's when you see this song, it is an absolutely beautiful song. It's a theologically rich song. There's so much in this about the Lord, and it is great, solid content that was sung in probably the most shaky context for a young teenage girl that she could be in. A young teenage girl that was in extraordinary circumstances. Like, picture this scene with me. Picture there's an angel Gabriel, who has come to the town of Nazareth, pretty normal, ordinary town, maybe even overlooked town in the area of region of Galilee. And he comes to this young girl's house, most likely a teenager. She's betrothed to marry this guy named Joseph. Her name's Mary, or engaged to be married. And so he comes to her and he says, hey, paraphrasing here. You're going to conceive the Messiah. Like, if you're a Jewish young girl. Whoa, whoa. God has been silent for 400 years between the Old Testament and New Testament at this point. And this is the same Messiah that's been predicted for, like, centuries and centuries before that. And so there's some fears, there's some questions that arise. And God says, and the angel said, you're going to be the one. Of all the people, you're going to be the one to bring the savior of the world into existence here on this earth. Like, this is extraordinary circumstances, right? Well, all the while, at the same time, one of Mary's relatives named Elizabeth is also pregnant, and she's pregnant with who we would come to know later as John the Baptist. So two pregnant relatives get together. Like, this seems pretty normal. Oh, you're pregnant. You're pregnant. Oh, this is awesome. Like, let's get together and talk about it, right? There could be a lot more there. But, like, you're going to talk about it because you're really excited about these babies that you're carrying. And it seems totally normal because a lot of people would do that. What's not normal about it? There is a young teenage girl that's pregnant who is a virgin. She's not Been married. Elizabeth, Scripture says she's barren. She can't have a child. Not only is she barren, she's. It says she's well advanced in years. All right. I wish my kids would say that to me. Sometimes they just look at the gray hair and go, you're old, dad, right? I'm just advancing years, son. So you got this older lady who can't have kids and a young teenage virgin getting together because they're pregnant. These aren't normal circumstances. These are extraordinary circumstances. So when Mary enters the room to meet Elizabeth, Elizabeth recognizes, oh, you're pregnant with the Savior of the world. Not only does Elizabeth recognize this, the baby inside of Elizabeth leaps because he recognizes that he's in the presence of the Lord. Like, this is incredible circumstances. And what happens next is that Mary bursts forth in this song to the Lord. That's the song that we just read. So it's an incredible scene in a world of broken sinfulness. After 400 years of silence, the long awaited Savior of the world is coming. And it's coming through this young teenage girl. The promised salvation to the world comes in overwhelming circumstances for a normal girl and an overlooked town. So what is this song that she sings? Go back to verses 46 and 47. And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. That idea of magnify there means to make or declare something great, to enlarge it. Now you might go, well, is Mary just saying, like, my soul magnifies the Lord because he needs. He's small and he needs to be magnified. Like, no, that's not what she's saying at all. Imagine or picture this like the difference between a microscope and a telescope. All right? A microscope, you're going to look at something that's very tiny to enlarge it, to make it look bigger. But a telescope, you look at something that's really big so that you can see it for what it actually is. This idea of magnifying the Lord here, my soul magnifies the Lord. Is she not trying to make Lord bigger? He doesn't need to be made bigger. He's great. And she's going, my soul recognizes your greatness for who you are. And now I'm just putting that on display in my words. So she's. Her soul is magnifying the Lord. What is she magnifying and rejoicing in? My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. She's rejoicing and magnifying the Lord God her Savior. Because again, this baby inside of her is not a typical baby. Because previously, around this same time, an angel has come to her engaged husband, Joseph and said, hey, Mary's gonna have a baby. You're gonna call him Jesus. Why are you gonna call him Jesus? For he will save the people from their sins. So I imagine as she's thinking about this baby inside of her, and she's considering, like, oh, this is the baby that's going to save everybody from their sins, the world from their sins. Like, this is who I'm carrying. He's the only one that can do this. We've waited for him for so long, and now he's the one, and I get to carry him. She's praising him and rejoicing and magnifying him. Not because he's going to, like, help her deliver her from some, like, bad circumstances. She's praising him because he's the only way to salvation. The only way to salvation. I love the line from that song, Mary. Did you know it says, the child that you will deliver. Let me start that again, because I can get that right. The child that you delivered will soon deliver you. You imagine that as mom like, oh, I just birthed this baby. This baby's crying all night, all this. He's going to be the one to deliver me from my sin. Not a typical baby. Says, my soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God the Savior. Her spirit is exceedingly glad. Like the word picture here is like leaps for joy. The same thing that John the Baptist did in the womb. Like, this is what her spirit is doing. Leaping for joy. This is why Christians sing sing. Because we have a Lord and a God who is our Savior. We're not left alone. We praise God because he's Lord and Savior. He's the only one. No matter the circumstances that you're walking through, no matter how bad the circumstances are you're walking through, they will never be as bad. You and your hopeless, broken state. Without Christ, we will always have a reason to sing, no matter what circumstance you're walking through, because you have a Savior who is Christ the Lord. So why can't she praise like this? I think the key comes from where this magnification and rejoicing comes from. It says, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices and God my Savior. Now, throughout Scripture, soul and spirit often can have different meanings, but I think here in Mary's song, they're actually interchangeable terms. And what it's Saying is her inner being within her. Her mind, will, emotions, thoughts, feelings, desires. All that's within her is bursting forth in a song. Now, guys, Mary's worship didn't spring forth first from her lips. It began deep inside of her. Mary had this internal attitude of adoration to her God that simply just resulted into a song. Her praise started long before she sang a song. Now, what makes me say that if you know the Old Testament and you read through Mary's song, you're like, oh, that's familiar. That's familiar. That's familiar. There are over 35 different allusions to Old Testament scriptures in these 10 verses alone. 35 different allusions from six different books. So if you're like, oh, that sounds familiar. That was in Exodus or Psalms or Isaiah or Zephaniah or Micah or First Samuel. Like, all these things that Mary's saying are things that show up in other parts of Scripture. This is not new to her. In First Samuel, chapter two, we're not going to read it, but I encourage you to go look at it, because if you look at it today or this week, you're going to realize like, oh, that sounds really familiar. Because it's Hannah's prayer as she's getting ready to have Samuel and she was barren. And she responds in this song. And if you just put these two texts beside each other, you're like, wow, that's really familiar. Why? Because Mary was really familiar with the Old Testament scriptures. Very familiar. This was not something that just like, oh, magically, this is what Mary said in this moment. Now, this was deep inside of her, and it just flowed out of her in that moment. So why did she know these scriptures so well? This is what's hard about preaching through, just jumping into a book of the Bible. This one, I like preaching through books of the Bible because we don't understand the whole context. So let's back up to verse 38. This is when the angel is with Mary and he's told her this news, and she responds this way. 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. So she gets this incredible news. And there were some questions initially. And then eventually she goes, I'm your servant. I'm committed to you. There was a commitment to the Lord before a song ever came out of her mouth. I'm committed. Whatever. Whatever you want in this situation, just let it be because I'm going to humbly submit my life to you, God. So her song started, well, before the words came out of her mouth, the song started when she made a commitment to the Lord. It wasn't just her that recognized that. Elizabeth actually recognizes that in verse 45. And blessed is she. So this is Elizabeth talking. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. So what does Elizabeth praise Mary for that she believed? So there's. Mary has this commitment to God that starts before her worship, and she has faith in God. And this is where her worship started. This is what I want you to know this morning, guys, that praising God starts with trusting God. Praising God starts with trusting God, guys. Mary's worship was forged well before these extraordinary circumstances arrived. This is just kind of the crescendo of her heart. What was building up inside of her finally just comes out in a song of praise, guys. As Christians, your praise has to start before Sunday. Your praise has to start before Sunday. And your worship does not need a band. Your worship doesn't need a choir. It doesn't need an emotional bridge repeated 15 times. You need a right perspective of who God is. And that perspective doesn't just show up on a Sunday. It's a devotion to God every single day of your life. If you're going through an extraordinary circumstance, good or bad, and you think you're just going to, like, burst out in a song like Mary on a Sunday, the only way you're going to do that is if this song has been building in you before this. If your Sunday worship is just on Sunday, it's just shallow singing and it's superficial, and superficial worship is fake. And superficial worship has always been unacceptable to God. You're like, whoa, how do you know that? Read Isaiah, chapter one and Malachi, chapter one, and I'll just point it out in the book of Amos. The prophet Amos, Chapter 5. This give you a little context here. So Amos is prophesying against really a lot of the priests of that time who were treating people really poorly, but then offering these great sacrifices to God. And this is what God says, I hate. I despise your feast. I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. And the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs to the melody of your harps. I will not listen. That's pretty strong words from prophet Amos, right? To say you can't just treat people and live your life as though God exists and Then show up to worship, offer him something, and think that God's going to accept that. That's not how it works. Now, this is where there's incredible news in the gospel, right? That on our worst days, God sees us because of Christ's righteousness. So that we can come here and we can say, I'm a mess, I don't have it together. The circumstances are bad. My heart's in a bad place. Thank you for your righteousness. Now, we don't do that in vain. We talked about that last week, right? So don't just think I can just hold on to that and just show them, do whatever I want, right? The point here is that Mary's worship wasn't a superficial worship. It didn't just happen that in that moment it happened. It started well before that. Her outward singing just started from an internal satisfaction in the Lord and a commitment to the Lord and a trust in the Lord as her Savior. But beyond being Lord and Savior, what else does Mary praise God for? Here, verses 48 and 49. 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. For he who is mighty has done great things for me. What you have here, guys, is Mary recognizing more and more about how great her God is. She was trusting in who God was and what he was doing. And she says, God has looked on my humble estate. The idea of looking on elsewhere in Luke is similar to having mercy on somebody. So showing mercy. So what Mary is doing here is I'm going to praise you as Lord, I'm going to praise you as Savior, and I'm going to praise you because you're merciful, that you looked on my condition, my humble estate, my lowly condition. And remember this condition that she's in. She's a pregnant teenage girl that's not married. And in that society wasn't a good thing. Still not a good thing, right? But here she is. Society is going to look down upon her. She could walk around in shame and embarrassment. And if they were to practice the law to its nth degree From Deuteronomy, chapter 22, she could actually be stoned to death because of this, because she's pregnant. Not from her future husband. Not. I mean, she's pregnant outside of wedlock. So the fears that come there, the shame, the embarrassment, like, I want you to feel what she could potentially be feeling here. And she goes, I praise you, God, because you looked on. You've Shown mercy in my humble estate, in my lowly condition, when there's fears and potential death and they're going to for sure make me divorce this guy. What is her response? Not to praise. Not praise for her awesomeness, but despite of it, she was the object of divine compassion and it had nothing to do with her. It was all by God's mercy alone that he had looked on her humble condition. Because isn't this such the opposite of how the world acts, though? What do we give our attention to in this world? The distinguished, the popular, all this. Like you look at, oh, that's who we want to worship. And Mary goes, that's not who God looks on. That's not who God shows mercy to. In fact, James chapter four says it this way, but he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Like, this is our God. He gives grace to those of humble estate. And in Psalm 138, the Psalmist says this. For the Lord is high, he regards the lowly. But the haughty, he knows from afar Our Lord is lifted high. And he regards the lowly. He regards those that need mercy, which is every single one of us in this room. Like, what gains the attention of God? The humble, the humble. So what is the result of this? If God's looking out over the humble, what is the result for Mary? What does she say next? For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed. Was Mary blessed to carry the Messiah? Yes, absolutely. That's an amazing thing, right? If you just carry a child, the word says like you are, it's a blessing from the Lord. You get to carry the Messiah. That's an incredible blessing. Now this is where we got to stop, though. We got to stop and talk for a second. Because an undue exaltation of Mary is not biblical. An undue exaltation of Mary is not biblical. There is nothing in the New Testament that says Mary lived a sinless life. There's nothing in the New Testament that says she was a perpetual virgin. There is nothing in the New Testament that said her body was just assumed into heaven. Those are not found in the New Testament. Guys, I don't want to discount the fact that Mary is blessed. She got to carry the Messiah. That's incredible. But we cannot venerate Mary to God like status. She is not God. And I think Mary. This is Michael's thoughts here, okay? I think she would be appalled if you look at her whole entire song here, that we would worship her and not her God. People in the New Testament even tried to do this. This is not a foreign concept. In fact, In Luke chapter 11, this is Jesus. And he says, and he. Jesus said these things. A woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed. But he said, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. So somebody comes to Jesus and says, look, your mom's awesome. She's so blessed. And he goes, let me tell you about blessing. Blessing is the one who hears the word of God and keeps it. It's not just. It's not my mom. I'm just trying to teach you. Like, guys, this is what the New Testament teaches. That is Mary is not God. She's even saying, I'm not. I'm going to be. People are going to call me blessed. Sure, she got to carry the Messiah, but she's not God. And we cannot put her to that status and notice, like, she quickly moves on from herself here, guys. She quickly moves on. She says, for he who is mighty has done great things for me. He who is mighty has done great things. She goes really quickly, like, people are going to call me blessed, but let me tell you, God Almighty has done great things for me. Done great things for me. Mary was blessed because she got to be the vessel by which the Lord God our Savior would come into this earth. But Mary is not God. So why did she praise? Because she trusted who God was. She trusted what God was doing in her. She saw him as mighty and merciful, doing great things. And then the end of verse 49, it says, and holy is his name. Holy means that he was utterly transcendent. He is different than any other person in this world. He is not like us. He is God. She goes, people are going to call me blessed, but he's done mighty things. And he is so different. He is so different than me. He is so different than the world. Mary was not the object of praise here. God was. But we understand self centeredness, right? Like in our world, like, we can turn it into, like, oh, this is all about Mary, but it's not. It's all about the Lord. And this song is so different than the most profitable Christmas song written. Anybody know what that is? All I Want for Christmas Is yous by Mariah Carey. Right? Three to five million dollars a year she makes from that song. All right, A lot of money for one song. A lot of money for anything, right? All I want for Christmas is you. Like, it's all about Me, all about me. That's the world we live in. Such a self centered world. That is not Mary's song at all. At all. God, let me tell you how awesome you are. You are incredible. You are mighty, but it doesn't stop there. We're going to go quickly through these next verses because I really wanted you to see that this praising God starts with the trust, but let's just see how awesome God is. Verse 50. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. So he's looked on or shown mercy to those of humble estate. But now it says he's shown mercy to those who fear him or revere him. Those that recognize how different and holy God is and they submit their lives to him and obey what he says. She's saying you've shown mercy to those who revere you that way. Because if we put on this superficial worship where we just praise on a Sunday and we just praise when a Christmas song comes on about Jesus and that's all the praise that we do, that's hypocrisy if our lives don't line up with it. If we say, God, you're awesome, but I'm going to live my life however I want to live it. You've received the grace of God in vain. God, you're so mighty, but I rule my life. God, you're the Savior, but I'm going to run to every other thing to try to save me from my sin, other than you. That's hypocrisy, superficial worship. That's not what Mary does here. She recognizes God. You've been merciful, I fear you now. Go down to 51 and 52. 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. This idea of like showing strength with your arm oftentimes comes up in scripture. It might say, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, just to show the power and the might and the strength of our God. And so what she's showing here in her praise is that God's mighty, He's powerful, he's strong. But he's also just because he scatters the proud, he brings them down. We just read In James chapter 4, God gives grace to the humble, but what does he do to the proud? He opposes them. Do you want to be on the opposing team of God Almighty? Try to do it on your own, Be self sufficient, because that's who he opposes. But God exalts the humble, those that take the lowest place, that don't trust in their own righteousness. And he keeps going. Verse 53, he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. Now the hungry here is not talking about physical hunger, it's actually talking about spiritual hunger. In the Beatitudes In Matthew chapter 5 says those who blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And Mary's saying, you filled the hungry, those who have a spiritual need that recognize that they are spiritually bankrupt. Those are the ones that you're going to fill, the ones that say, I can't do this on my own. The world can't help me out. And we've talked about this before, this idea that doesn't come from the Bible, that many people think comes from the Bible. God helps those who help themselves. It's not biblical. And like right here we find out like, he has filled the hungry, those who are humble, with good things, those who recognize that we don't have it together. Who does God help? God doesn't help those who help themselves. He helps those who humble themselves and recognize that they don't have anything good to offer God. But the rich, those who are self sufficient, think that they can pull it off on their own by pulling up their own bootstraps. He says, I'm going to send you away empty. The the prophet Jeremiah would say it this way in Jeremiah 17. Thus says the Lord, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. God doesn't help those who help themselves. He curses those who help themselves. He helps those who humble themselves and say, I can't do it. And that's what Mary's praising God for. Here, God, this is who you are. You help those of humble estate. You help the spiritually hungry. And then the end says, he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever. So she recognizes not that he's just helping her in the moment. She goes back in redemptive history and she goes, God, you're helping out your people. This is who you are. You have remembered your people. You haven't forgotten us again. Between the Old and New Testament, there's like 400 years of God being silenced. Do you think over 400 years you might feel forgotten? Yeah, probably. God, do you remember all those promises that you've made? Well, now it's coming true. There's a Messiah that she gets to carry and she goes, I'm praising you as you spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever. God promised this Messiah that there was going to be a blessing for the whole world that was going to come through Israel, come through Abraham's family in Genesis chapter 22, all the way back in Genesis. Now it's coming true. The whole world's going to be blessed. There's going to be a Savior of the world and she's carrying him. That's what she's praising God for. God, you're awesome. You've done great things in me and you've done great things in history and you are faithful. So what do we see about God here? He's mighty, he's strong. He remembers his people. He's faithful, he's just. Guys, this is why Christmas is so important. Because that awesome God came to the earth to save us from our sins. He sent his son to do this because we have graciously been given a Savior in our spiritually bankrupt state who blesses us with Christ's righteousness. May the songs that we sing at Christmas and may the songs that we sing all the time reflect his holiness, our hunger for him, his mercy, his might, his justice, his faithfulness. So why did Mary praise? How could she sing this song? Because she trusted who God was. She trusted what he was doing in her and she trusted what God had done in the past. Because again, praising God starts with trusting God. Praising God starts with trusting God. Guys, if you trust that God regards those of humble condition, you will praise when you're overlooked. When you don't get the job promotion, you praise. Because he's still God. If you trust that God is mighty to do great things, you will still praise when you are in an overwhelming situation. Because he's still God. If you trust that he is holy, you will praise because he's better than anything this world offers. If you trust that God is merciful to those who revere or fear him, you will praise him when you are desperately in need of mercy. If you trust that God is stronger than the proud and the mighty, you will praise him when you feel weak and oppressed because he's good and He's God. If you trust that he exalts the humble, you will praise him when you are humiliated. If you trust that he fills the spiritually hungry, you will praise Him. When you feel like you have nothing to offer him, you will still praise Him. If you trust that he sends the rich away empty handed, the self sufficient arrogant away empty handed, you will praise him when it feels like the opposition is winning, if you trust that he faithfully remembers his people, you will trust him. When you feel helpless and forgotten, you will praise him in those moments. Why? Because of who he is. Because of what he's doing and what he's done, not because of your situation. So guys, at Christmastime, when our world has commercialized this holiday and you feel like, oh, they've just forgotten Jesus. As Christians, we still praise. When you get less than ideal news, you still praise. When you feel like you have no good social status because you have chosen to follow the narrow road, you still praise. When you have avoided the comforts of this world, you still praise. Don't praise because it's just Christmas. Don't praise because you just showed up to church on a Sunday. Praise because of who your God is, because he's worthy to be praised. And how do we cultivate this kind of faith that would lead to that kind of praise? We have to grow in the knowledge of who he is. Like, get into his word, guys. Pick up a Bible reading plan out there. Once you start to see like, oh, this is who God is. He's incredible, he's awesome. You go, I want to trust him. And as you trust him, what happens? You want to praise him. This is who our God is. Because public praise of God in the extraordinary moments of life comes from private devotion in the ordinary moments of life. Public praise of God and the extraordinary moments of this life comes from private devotion to God in the ordinary moments. That's what happened with Mary. I'm committed to you, God. I trust you, God, and I'm going to praise you when life gets crazy. Can you imagine if we all live this out this way? If we hungered and thirsted for the knowledge of God? As our knowledge of God grew, our trust in God grew. And no matter what overwhelming circumstance you may be in, you can still come and worship. No matter how bad or how good life is. Because of the faith that you have in our great God, we still praise. Is that the kind of church we want to be? Amen. Let's pray. Lord God, you are mighty, you are just, you are holy, you are merciful. May we never see you as less. And as we see you, God, may those attributes of you not just be characteristics, but things that we believe about you because they're true. May our church be marked by that kind of belief. God, we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.