Rejoicing in Good News (Luke 1:39-56)

SERMON NOTES

Sermon Series: Good News of Great Joy

Sermon Title: Rejoicing in Good News

Sermon Text: Luke 1:39-56

1) We rejoice in the gift of Christ’s presence among us (v39-45)

2) We rejoice in the gift of Christ’s fulfillment of promise for us (v46-56)

SERMON FOOTNOTES

• This morning we read from the Chalcedonian Definition, written in the 4th Ecumenical Counsel of Chalcedon in AD451, as translated in the appendix of The Thrill of Orthodoxy: Rediscovering the Adventure of Christian Faith by Trevin Wax.

  We, then, following the holy fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in manhood, the same truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and the same consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages from the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days the same, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the God-bearer, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

• “No one who holds power dares to come near the manger; King Herod also did not dare. For here thrones begin to sway, the powerful fall down, and those who are high are brought low, because God is here with the lowly.” - sermon preached by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in London on the third Sunday of Advent on December 17, 1933. Taken from The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (p119-120).

• “Probably the most powerful statement of God’s work to destroy evil social structures is in the New Testament - in Mary’s Magnificat.” - Ronald Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity (p116).