Well, good evening. As ever, it's a privilege to be with you and to open God's Word with you. Our scripture reading this evening is taken from Luke chapter 1, as you see there in the bulletin, and we'll begin reading at verse 46 of Luke chapter 1. Luke 1, beginning at verse 46. Hear now the word of our Lord. 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. Thus far the reading of God's holy word. Would you pray with me. Our gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we ask now that by your Spirit you would take and apply this word to our hearts, and that we would give you glory and praise, and we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Well, maybe as you look at the text that I've chosen tonight, you wonder if my calendar is a little bit off. Isn't this part of the Christmas story? Doesn't this belong in a sermon perhaps preached last week or the week before. Well, I know where we are. I know that it's New Year's Eve and that Christmas lies behind us, but I don't think this is a story that is only for the run-up to Christmas. I think this is a great part of God's Word for us to reflect on together tonight as we close out 2021 and look ahead to the year to come in 2022. And this is what I really want to impress upon you tonight from Mary's song in Luke chapter one. I want to impress upon you that this is a great model for us. It's a model of the response of faith of one who knows what God's salvation means for her. It's a model of a response of faith for God's salvation and that model that's held out before us is a song, isn't it? It's a song of praise. We've just come through the Christmas season, and we've had a lot of Christmas songs. We've sung songs together in this very room over the last weeks. Maybe you've enjoyed your Christmas playlist, or maybe, like me, you've gotten a bit tired of Kixie on the radio and all the Christmas hits, and you're glad to have moved beyond that. Kids, I wonder about you. Did you have a favorite Christmas song as you performed either here or perhaps at your school or as you sang at home during this season. Christmas songs are sometimes just fun. Sometimes they don't have any deep meaning. We sing songs like Jingle Bells, which don't really have a lot of meaning in Southern California, do they? Unless you grew up in Pennsylvania, like my wife did, in Amish country, I don't think you were probably riding in the snow in a one-horse open sleigh any time in the recent couple of weeks. So sometimes those songs are just fun, aren't they? But sometimes our Christmas songs tell us a story. They tell us the story that we hear in the Gospels in new and fresh ways. We sang some of those last week on last Friday evening's Christmas Eve service. Songs like Hark the Heavenly Angels Sing, Glory to the Newborn King, where we get to sing back the words of scripture in praise to our God. And the song that we have in front of us this evening is a song that tells us a story. And it's a song in God's word that we want to take on our own lips, that we want our hearts and our minds and our affections to be engaged by so that we can respond with the same kind of praise and glory to God that Mary responds with in this song. As we look at this song this evening, I want you to think about not just what songs say, but also what songs do, the purposes that songs serve. Mary's song, you might even wonder, is it really a song? If you're following closely in the text, you notice there in verse 45 that, yes, the heading, the uninspired heading says Mary's song of praise, the Magnificat, if you're looking at the ESV Bibles in the pew there. But then what does verse 46 say? it says, and Mary said. So do we have it all wrong? Is this not really a song? Is this more like a poem or speech? What is this? I think it is a song. I think it's a song. I think it's just right to call it. In fact, in ancient terms, as we read this, we realize this is the kind of thing that exalts God. This is a praise. That's its genre. This is a song to praise and to glorify And in Mary's case, it's a spontaneous outburst of praise, but it's also a carefully composed song of glory to God that Luke then records for us and means for us to have that same kind of response. It's not just the words that we want to understand, what they mean. It's that we want to have the same kind of impulse, the same kind of praise reflex that Mary demonstrates in this text. you see there it is called the Magnificat. Some of you, if you are better educated than me, or most of us that are under 50 in this room, might have learned some Latin at school. And if you learned Latin, you'll know that Magnificat, what does it mean? It's just, it's just a way of saying, my soul praises the Lord. It's the first word in the Latin translation of the New Testament that we call the Vulgate. Mary says, my soul praises the Lord. It's a perfect translation of the Greek, which we should all learn. You know that. You've heard that from me before. But it's also the first word in that language. Praise, magnification, glory comes first. That's what this song is all about. That's what this song is meant to do. So whether we know Latin or not, as we engage with this song this evening, let's listen carefully to what it has to say to us so that we could leave this evening and see out this old year, welcome in the new year, with a song of praise on our lips, just like Mary. I'm not going to go into top 40 hits as we celebrate the years in. You might be glad to know. I don't recognize any of them anymore anyway. I haven't really heard them. Some of you who are younger might know them, but you do know, those of you who like music, that every song has a back backstory, doesn't it? Every song has a backstory. The singer's experience, sometimes the artist or the singer weaves in lyrics or themes from other songs that have influenced him or her, and Mary's song is no different. There are two contexts, two backstories that we need to understand so that we can grasp what her song really means. The first backstory is from the context of Luke chapter 1. The second backstory is going to take us further back into the Old Testament, but let's look briefly at Luke chapter 1. Dr. Godfrey made my job so much easier when last week he chose this earlier part of chapter 1 to preach on. I was a little worried for a moment that he might stray into the Magnificat, but he left that open for me this evening. But do you remember what he said? Do you remember what it was about this annunciation, the announcement of Gabriel to this young teenager in a backwater city, Nazareth, way up in the north in Galilee, in Israel, what was it that God announced to her through the angel? Well, if I got it right, I was trying to listen carefully last week, I think what we heard was we see here that Jesus is Mary's son, Jesus is also God's son, and Jesus is David's son. Is that about right? I think that was about right. And those are the key points that we need to bring from that earlier context of Luke chapter 1 with us as we come to Mary's song. This announcement that God is sending his own son to be born of a woman, to take on a human nature, and to take the throne of David. That's who this Jesus, this baby to be born is going to be. No ordinary child. And when Mary hears this announcement, she embraces it with faith. What does she say? She says, Lord, may it be done to your servant as you have said. She embraces it with faith. Elizabeth emphasizes Mary's response of faith in verse 45, when Elizabeth says, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Mary receives this miraculous announcement that God, in his mercy and his grace, is going to send his own son to be a savior. And his son will be born through her, but will also be a savior to her and for her. And she responds in faith. That's backstory number one. But there's another backstory that takes us further back into our Bibles, further back into the Old Testament. It's a backstory of what we might call redemptive history, because as we listen to Mary's song, we realize that, I wouldn't say that she has ripped off the Old Testament, because that's not the way to put it. Instead, what we can say is she's engaged in a remix. She's remixed a whole bunch of psalms, and she's remixed in particular one important song of praise, sung by another woman over a millennium before Mary, and that woman's name was Hannah. Can I ask you to have Luke chapter 1 open, if you're not already there, that's on page 1016, but keep a finger in Luke chapter 1, and we're going to do a little bit of comparison here between Luke chapter 1 and 1 Samuel chapter 2. Let me give you that page number. 1 Samuel chapter 2, and that's on page 267 in your Bibles. 267. This is where we get what is labeled in our Bibles Hannah's prayer, but it's really a song. It's really a song just like Mary's song, and it's a song that seems to have inspired Mary. Mary herself, but also the Holy Spirit has woven it into Mary's song. Let me show you what I mean. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but you might like to just flip back and forth as I make a few points of comparison. In 1 Samuel chapter 2 verse 1, Hannah says, my heart exults in the Lord. I rejoice in your salvation. Then if we turn back to Luke chapter 1 verses 46 and 47, Mary says, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. do you hear it both women glorify or exalt the lord both women rejoice in god as their savior but there's even more if we read on hannah says back in first samuel 2 2 there is none holy like the lord and mary says in verse 49 of luke 1 holy is his name both women praise the lord for his holiness. But there are even more echoes. Hannah, in verses 7 and 8, says this, the Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. And listen to what Mary says in verses 52 and 53. 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. Do you hear it? Do you hear the echoes? Both songs celebrate God's sovereign power to bring about what we could call a great reversal. God brings about a great reversal. He overthrows the proud and he exalts the humble. All of these echoes between Hannah's song and Mary's song. Exaltation and joy. A God who saves his people. A God who humbles the exalted and exalts the humble. These are two very similar songs. Two different songs, but the same God. Two songs of praise of the same Lord. And two stories of God's saving power and mercy. But there's a great progression from Hannah's song in the Old Testament to Mary's song in the New Testament. In Hannah's song, we celebrate God's miraculous gift of a baby, baby Samuel, who would judge the nation for his lifetime. But in Mary's song, whom do we celebrate? We celebrate the gift of Mary's son, who is God's own son, who would not just judge and reign for a single human lifetime, but who would be the very savior of all of God's people and who would sit on David's throne forever. So we learn a really important lesson, I think, as we think about these two contexts. The context, historical context in Luke 1 of Mary's song and the Old Testament redemptive historical context of Hannah's song in the Old Testament. What we learn is this. We learn the Bible's answer to this question. Here's the question. What is the appropriate response when God keeps his promises and works a miracle of salvation for his people? What's the appropriate response when God keeps all of his promises and sends a savior working a miracle of salvation for God's people? Well, you know what that response is. It's a song. It's to sing. What's the right response to the gift of God's Son at Christmas and all through the year? It's to sing songs of praise. Our text teaches us this, that the right response of faith to the salvation of God is to sing, to sing songs of glory and songs of praise to our God. That's why I said at the beginning that Mary's song is a kind of model for us. It models this response of praise that we too should have. it models for us as well reasons that we should praise because Mary's joy has its reasons. She doesn't just exclaim. She doesn't just emote. She doesn't just express her feelings. She gives us the reasons for her praise. And that's what we're going to see as we look a little bit more closely at the text of her song. Now, Dr. Godfrey said something else last Friday evening that I picked up on as I was listening. He said that Martin Luther thought that the most important part of Mary's song, the Magnificat, was in verse 48. I believe that's right, if I heard him right. That Luther thought verse 48 was the most important, the centerpiece of Mary's song. Well, I'm going to disagree with Luther this evening. One doesn't disagree with Luther very lightly, so I'll tell you why in just a moment. I think I understand what Luther meant and what he was on to, but I disagree. I think that the main point, the most important part of Mary's song comes right at the top, right at the beginning in verses 46 and 47 when she cries out, my soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. That's the main point, that's the thrust. That's the purpose. The purpose of this whole song is to give glory to God and to express her joy. And then she begins to give us her reasons. And I think what Luther picked up on in verse 48 is one of, not just the first reason in Mary's song, but one of the most important reasons that Mary or any of us who are Christian believers can have to praise God. I think Luther focused on verse 48 because that little word for signals this reason, doesn't it? For he has looked upon the humble estate of his servant. Luther picked up on Mary's humility before God. And if we have that same posture before God, if we know that he's the creator and we're the creatures, if we know that God is the one who is holy and we are unrighteous sinners before him, If we know that God is the one who works salvation and we don't work salvation ourselves, then we adopt, we will adopt that same kind of posture that Mary had. A posture that says, who am I? Who am I that you should announce this wonderful salvation to me, Lord? Why is it that you even pay attention to me? Why would you regard the humble estate of your servant. And Mary got this. And Luther loved that, I think. He loved Mary's humility. And I think that's why he put his finger on verse 48. Mary knows her lowest state. Mary is one of the humble of the world. Mary is one who had no wealth. She had no status. She had no accomplishments. She had no pedigree. She had no influence. She had no power. She had nothing that she could hold out before God and say, because of this, you should pay attention to me. You should bless me. Nothing that Mary had. And she knew that. And until we are in that same place, until we adopt that same kind of humility before a holy God who extends by grace his salvation to us, then we will not be able to sing a song of praise in the way that Mary sings her song of praise. This is a song, this song of Mary, a song for the humble, who know their true spiritual condition before the Lord. As Reverend Contreras prayed earlier, we would be just like those around us in the world, wouldn't we? If not for the Lord's grace, if he hadn't reached out and grabbed us and taken hold of us, even though we didn't deserve it, and brought us to himself, reconciling us to himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's done. Jesus Christ has come into the world, and he's come into the world to save sinners like you and like me. And he came as a savior, and he perfectly obeyed God's covenant law, which we all have broken, and he submitted himself to that punishment of death on the cross spilling his own blood to atone for our sins and he bore in his body the curse and the penalty and the condemnation that we deserved he came to be our savior and that's exactly what mary's responding to is the announcement of her heavenly father that he was sending Jesus as a Savior. And so like Mary, we need to be humble, and we need to realize our need before God for a Savior. Mary's song is a song for the humble who know that God's salvation is for them, that it's for us, that it's for me. But look at the following reasons. That's just the first. There are other reasons that Mary gives for her joy. Do you see the second for in verse 49? that for, it's like a because, isn't it? Tells us what follows is another basis or reason for her praise. For he who is mighty has done great things for me. What has our God done for us? What is our God like? What's his character? He's done great things, Mary reminds us. He's a faithful God and he's a powerful God. And all of this is unpacked in the remaining verses of Mary's song. And as she unpacks this, it further motivates her praise. Look at verses 51 and following, where we hear more about God's character and his mighty acts. Verse 51 mentions the strength of God's arm. The strength of God's arm. Does that kind of language resonate with you at all? Does that sound familiar? Do you hear the Old Testament echoes in the phrase, the strength of God's arm, or God's mighty right arm? You see, and boys and girls who are here this evening, I think I know something about Mary. I think I know that she went to a kind of Sunday school. Maybe she was even in catechism class, or maybe it was just that at family worship, her family told these Old Testament stories, and especially the Old Testament story of the Exodus. Why do I think that? Because she knows the lyrics of those songs. She knows the stories of the Exodus, and she borrows that, and she weaves that right into her own song right here. This is Exodus language when we talk about God's mighty arm. I can prove it to you. In Exodus chapter 6, verse 6, God sends Moses to Pharaoh, and he says what's going to happen as he's going to bring his people out of slavery in Egypt. He says, say therefore to the people of Israel, I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them. And here it is. Don't miss it. And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. That's not the only place. You could track it through text after text in the Exodus and beyond. The Psalms love this phrase, to celebrate the mighty arm of the Lord. One more, if you'll allow me. In Exodus chapter 15, after God actually makes good on his promise and he brings the people out of Egypt through those waters of the Red Sea, safely to the other side, defeating their enemies as they tried to follow them, what do they do on the other side? They celebrate. How do they celebrate? They celebrate with a song. Exodus 15 is the song of Moses, so-called. And in that song, do you know how that song ends? That song ends with a celebration of God's mighty power, and you won't be surprised to hear one of the lines in the lyrics. Listen. Exodus 15, from verse 13. You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. The peoples, that is the peoples of the surrounding nations, have heard. They tremble. Terror and dread fall upon them. Why? Here it is. Because of the greatness of your arm. They are still as a stone till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased. You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The Lord will reign forever and ever. God's mighty arm, God's strong arm, represents his exodus power of deliverance. It's shorthand for God, the exodus savior, the redeemer, the one who saves his people, and not only brings them out of bondage in Egypt, but brings them safely through trial and tribulation, safely through the wilderness, and plants them in his presence on his holy mountain. That's what God's strong arm does, and that's the kind of echo that we should hear when Mary sings about God's mighty arm. That's another reason for her praise. Verses 52 and 53 speak of yet a third reason, the great reversals that God works. We heard those comparisons between Hannah's song and Mary's song that God's the one who exalts the humble and brings low the proud? Well, here it is, another reason to praise God. And these are not, are they? These are not the reversals that our world likes to see happen or seems to want to see happen. This is not the kind of reversal when you violently pull down the powerful, when you steal from the rich and the wealthy to give away to the poor, because you think that's the way to right wrongs and settle injustice. This is not overthrowing institutions and authority structures in order to bring in some kind of new age. That's not the kind of reversal that this text is talking about. Instead, this kind of reversal, this is the reversal that we see again and again and again in God's word where God looks out and he sees those who are proud and exalt themselves against him and he brings them low he humbles them to the dust and he looks out and he sees those who know their need who know their humble estate and he raises them up graciously that's the kind of reversal that is celebrated in our text here and there's one more reason Mary gives right at the end of the song, verses 54 and 55. One further reason for Mary's praise and her joy. It's the Lord's covenant faithfulness. Do you see it there in those last verses? The Lord helps his people, she sings. How does the Lord help his people? She goes on by remembering his mercy, remembering his mercy just as he spoke to Abraham. Mary celebrates the fact that the God she knows as Savior, and the God that we serve is a God of covenant faithfulness. And she recalls that promise that God made to Abraham back in Genesis 15, that he would only and always bless Abraham and his seed and never curse them, that he would be their God forever and ever. And she celebrates God's covenant faithfulness, especially as it is coming to light in the birth of her son, the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a lot more that we could say, believe it or not, from this song of Mary. But here's one way we could sum up. What are the reasons for Mary's praise? What motivates her to have this response of joy? It's God's grace to the humble, undeserving sinner, isn't it? She's motivated by God's mighty power in an exodus-like salvation. She is motivated to praise God because his sovereign mercy is displayed in the reversals that he works according to his grace and mercy. And she is prompted to praise as she remembers God's covenant promises. For all these reasons then, Mary exclaims in verses 46 and 47, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in god my savior so brothers and sisters what do we do with this as we round out 2021 and look ahead to 2022 what's the response our response to god's word in mary's song well one response i think we've already really been prompted to this evening as we look back Reverend Contreras read out these wonderful statistics to us earlier and isn't this cause to celebrate many of those things that we see in Mary's song God's covenant faithfulness to his people God's power to save his faithfulness to bring those who are baptized to the point of professing their faith his faithfulness to bring beloved saints even through death unto eternal life in his presence. So I don't know exactly what your 2021 was like. I know it was buried. Some of you welcomed new children. Some of you welcomed new grandchildren. Some of you sorrowfully said goodbye to family members and friends that went to be with the Lord. But in all of that, surely we can celebrate, just like Mary, God's covenant faithfulness and remember his promises and remember how he was with us every step of the way through this past year. And let that stir our hearts up to praise him and to have joy because of what he's done for us. What about as we look ahead? What as we look ahead into 2022? How could you, maybe together with your family, those of you who are here with families, prepare to cultivate in your family, in your own life in the coming year, this kind of reflex of praise that we see in Mary's song. I think there are a few ways we could do this. I think there are chiefly two, actually. And the first one might surprise you because it's one that many of you are already doing, but I want to encourage you to continue and to be diligent in. And that is to come on the Lord's day, to come and gather for corporate worship on the Lord's day and to hear his promises proclaimed to you. And then what do we do? Every time we gather, Lord's Day morning, Lord's Day evening, we begin with songs of praise and we close with songs of praise, don't we? We respond to God with songs of praise. Now, what if, what if, here just humor me for a moment, do a thought experiment. What if instead of merely coming on the Lord's Day, we wove this together with what we do during the week in our own homes and formed habits in our own lives. And for those of you who are already doing this, I want to cheer you on and say, keep going. For those of you who would love to do this, I want to say, in the Lord's strength, go for it, brothers and sisters, this coming year. What if, daily around your table at home, you tried to cultivate this habit of joining up God's promises to a response of sung praise? Let me give you just a very practical way you could do that. Candy wonderfully gathers for us every week, doesn't she? The order of service. And so usually what? On a Wednesday, on a Thursday, that's emailed out to us, lands in our inboxes. What do you do with that? Does that just sit there, or do you open that? What if you opened it, and what if you scanned and saw the order of service for the coming Lord's Day, and you looked especially to see what are the psalms that we're going to sing this Lord's Day? What are the hymns that we're going to praise God with? And what if you took one or two of those, and you, and maybe together with your children, began to sing, and took two or three days to prepare yourself so that when you came on the Lord's Day, you were ready. You were ready with your mind and your heart, with your affections, to sing from the heart God's praise. Or you could reverse the flow, couldn't you? What if, maybe you forget to do that on a Lord's Day preparation, but you come out of Sunday, and you've sung God's praise and you go home from a Lord's Day evening service and you take with you the bulletin, well, you could take again one of those psalms or hymns that resonated with you and you could take it into your week and you could sing it day by day. You could meditate on those words and especially the psalms, by the way. This is a beautiful gift. I hope you have one in your home. If you don't have one of these at home yet, it is a wonderful investment to have one or more of these so that during the week you can open to the Psalter at the beginning and find a psalm tune and to begin to practice singing psalms of praise to our God. Maybe you take one for the first month of the year. Psalm 90 is what we sang tonight, isn't it, in the run-up to the sermon. Psalm 90, a beautiful psalm of God's faithfulness. What if you took that psalm and over the month of January, you worked on committing that psalm to song so that you could sing it from the heart, maybe even sing it by memory. Well, you see where I'm going there. Some practical possibilities for applying exactly what it is that God's Word points us to in Mary's song of praise. But lest you think that I'm trying merely to help you manufacture songs of praise, or in some way suggests that we should manipulate praise. That's not at all what I mean to suggest here. Of course, praise has to be from the head and from the heart, from our will and from our affections and emotions. God commands us, doesn't he, to sing his praise, to glorify him with all that we are, all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. I want to leave you with a wonderful way that Calvin suggests we could do this. John Calvin, when he looked at this text in Luke chapter one, Mary's song, said, do you notice what Mary does? Mary doesn't draw attention to herself. The Roman Catholic Church has it wrong. She's not the queen of heaven. She's not the one being celebrated here. Yes, of course she's blessed because God has sent his son through her and for her, as well as for the rest of us. But what does Mary do, Calvin says? She draws our attention to God's faithfulness, to his promises. And there is no better way to stir yourself up to praise in the coming year than to do the same thing. Do you want to be grateful and joyful and sing like Mary? Then perhaps you can remember God's promises in his word, promises such as that wonderful new covenant promise that I will remember your sins no more, says the Lord. Can you hear that and not respond with joy? Or do you want to do you want to praise God and glorify him in the same manner as Mary? Perhaps you could remember God's promise that he has saved you eternally in Jesus Christ and he says to you, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Those are the kinds of promises Calvin says, that we should hold in front of us, day by day, to stir ourselves up to praise. Well, I hope that 2022 is a year of praise for you, and a year of sung praise, that perhaps you improve your singing voice in the coming year, as you sing praise to God. Many of you are familiar with the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question one, which asks, what is the whole reason that we were put here. What is the chief end of man? And what is that answer? It's to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Do you hear the resonances with Mary's song, glory and rejoicing? But perhaps even better known to you is the Heidelberg Catechism. And I know that question one is very precious to this congregation, and it's becoming more and more precious to our family as well. Many of you know that by heart. You learned it as a young child. Some of you in Sunday school have been learning it even this year. I'd like to ask you, as we finish, if you'd take out your Forms and Prayers book so that we're all using the same version. Sometimes the words are slightly different if we learned this a longer time ago. It's on page 201. And I want to finish with this because I think question one and answer one captures so beautifully these same promises of salvation, Christ that we hear echoing through Mary's song. It's a wonderful summary of the comfort of the gospel, and it should stir our hearts up to joy and praise. So I'll ask the question, and let's all join together in saying the answer. Christian, brother and sister, what is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has delivered me from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation, because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, also assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. And that is the kind of gospel promise that should stir us up to sing a song of glory and of joy, just like Mary's song.