To MAGNIFY GOD-V—Psalm 34:6-7(:1-10)
[VBS Theme—‘Magnified’—Psalm 34:3]
Attention:
The other day, I got in the car to head to the office. As I closed the car-door, I was immediately confronted by the woods in front of me, just beyond the edge of the pastorium’s/parsonage’s property.
That scene before me thru the car’s windshield, was the source of return to God’s peacefulness, & His wisdom.
The shade provided by the trees, in the heat of summertime, & the abundance of life that was obvious in the ‘woods’ overall, became for me, an immediate personal source of relief, calm, clarity, & reflection!...
All for which I am driven to MAGNIFY God’s name!
Some Considerations:
•We can become guilty of ‘casually’ regarding God’s glory.
•But, we can ALSO truly see & appreciate God as He works in every aspect of our life, so that we can become unashamed advocates of God.
*We can get so busy, that we do NOT magnify & exalt God. And when that happens, we have allowed ‘something else’ to TAKE GOD’s PLACE in our hurried life.
And being ‘too hurried’ for God to guide us, is why ‘life’ can seem meaningless, & depressive, & misdirected, & confusing.
Whenever we cease to allow God His proper & rightful place in our lives, then we have reached the point, where we are elevating self & humanity’s limited wisdom, over & above the heavenly perfections of God & His kingdom!
*The Church must Magnify, ‘make much of’, elevate, & exalt God, so that the reality of His nature, character, & workings can be easily seen & understood by the world at large!
•So, God’s people, both individually & gathered, must MAGNIFY GOD!
Need:
By God’s design, what is expected of humanity thru all ages, is to personally ‘Magnify’, YHWH-God, their Creator.
However, that expectation for mankind, is willingly subordinated & submitted by God, to each person’s personal choice. And So every person of every generation is personally answerable to God, for whether they follow God’s intended expectation or not!
Psalm 34 captures that reality thru the encouraging, urging, convicting, imploring, & informative words of it’s writer, King David.
At the time this Psalm was written, David had already been ‘anointed’ thru the prophet Samuel, as King of Israel(1Sam. 16:1-13). However he had not yet been recognized as such politically(1Chron. 10:1--11:3), because King Saul was in power & would not abdicate to David! And David refused to abuse His human ability to ‘physically remove’ king Saul.
•And as King David bided his time under King Saul, he approached Abimelech of Philistia, attempting some degree of asylum from Saul’s wrath.
•This Psalm(34) is one result of that time in king David’s life.
David was a recipient of YHWH-God’s protection(deliverance/rescue), & so David made much of & ‘magnified’ Him.
So simply stated:
God’s people magnify God.
But:
When do we truly magnify God?
When is God magnified in your life?
In verses :1-10 are found:
6 realities necessary for magnifying YHWH-God in your life.
The last time we were in Psalm 34, we found that in order:
To Magnify God In Your Life, God must be...
1. BOAST-WORTHY To You(:1-2a)
2. SHARE-WORTHY To You(:2b-3)
3. FREEING To You(:4)
4. JOY-WORTHY To You(:5)
Today, we’re going to look at verses :6-7, where we’ll discover that in order...
5—To Magnify God In Your Life, God must ALSO be...
THANK-WORTHY To You(:6-7)
Explanation:(:6-7)
:6—“This poor man cried out, & the LORD heard him, And saved him out of all his troubles.”
Despite the responsibilities & recognition, granted to our positions in the world, God’s people must see themselves as David, the anointed King of Israel, viewed himself.
He considers himself to be a “poor man.” That is, David sees himself as a spiritual pauper. He sees himself to be in dire spiritual need, comparable to any “poor man” who is financially & economically destitute. Without YHWH-God in David’s life, David recognizes himself as a man of little to no consequence or influence in the world at large.
In that attitude of ‘contrite’ poverty...In that ‘dearth’ or lack of ability, David readily admits that he “cried out” to YHWH God.
The result of his “crying out” was that , as stated before(:4), YHWH-God, in His triunity, “heard” David’s “cries.”
And as before(:4), YHWH-God “saved” David from “all” of the “troubles” in which David found himself.
If we examine David’s life, we get a clearer picture of the “salvation” God offers to people in THIS life today!
•God’s “salvation” as it is experienced this side of death, & in this world of sinfulness, can bring trials & even burdens. BUT God’s “salvation” is ‘freeing’ to those who are His, even in the midst of, & despite, a short, but seemingly never-ending lifetime of trials & pressures. And therefore we are exceedingly THANKFUL to Him for that all-encompassing freedom of His “saving” us “out of all” our “troubles”!
The Holy Spirit relates that the difficulties & “troubles” of this life are not worthy to be compared— Like comparing apples with rocks— with the promised ‘glory’ that God’s people will experience in heaven.
•Rom. 8:16-18—“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, & if children, then heirs--heirs of God & joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
*The promise of the “glory” that God’s people & all creation will experience, is something for which, you should be ever-THANKFUL/Grateful to God!
Verse :7 adds that...
:7—“The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him, And delivers them.”
“The angel of the LORD” ‘most likely’ refers to a pre-incarnate presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.
•Or in another sense “the angel of the LORD” could possibly refer to the collective host of “the LORD’s” “angelic” servants/messengers.
*Beyond that, we should all know & focus on this...That YHWH-God extends His ‘Arm’(Jesus) to “deliver” any of “those who” reverently fear” Him!
YHWH-God’s presence & assurance comes to “those who fear Him” by means of “the angel of the LORD’s” “encampment all around” them.
•God assures & ensures every believer(“those who fear Him”) that God’s “deliverance” is in play.
•And the “deliverance” that God offers is extended toward “all” of His people!
“At once & altogether David was clean”[completely] “rid of all his woes. The LORD sweeps our griefs away as men destroy a hive of hornets, or as the winds clear away the mists.”—Charles H. Spurgeon
Php. 4:6-9—“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer & supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; & the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts & minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue & if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things. The things which you learned & received & heard & saw in me, these do, & the God of peace will be with you.”
*!And as a result, God’s people are unashamed to offer their THANKS to Him!*
Argumentation:
Your ‘joy’ in the Lord is directly related to the ‘Thankfulness’ toward God that resides in your heart!
1Thess. 5:16-19—“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit.”
2Thess. 2:13-14—“But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit & belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1Tim. 1:12-17—“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, & an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith & love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying & worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor & glory forever & ever. Amen.”
Ps. 97:12—“Rejoice in the LORD, you righteous, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.”
Col. 1:9-12—“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, & to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom & spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work & increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience & longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.”
Illustration:
*When I was growing up, there was a large picture that always hung in our family dining room. It was one of the most reproduced paintings of the 20th Century. The picture captures an obviously poorer man. The man has some age on him & his hair & beard neatly combed & trimmed, are completely white. He is sitting at his small dinner table. On the table is a large, thick unopened family Bible. The man has folded the earpieces of his ‘spectacles’(glasses) & he has placed them on top of the Bible he had been reading. His head is bent slightly forward & down, & rests on the thumbs of his folded hands. His eyes are closed. He is in the process of praying—giving thanks to God for the meager meal he is about to eat. Closer to the man than his Bible, & immediately next to the Bible, is a bowl of thin, brown soup of some sort with a spoon in it. There is a knife at the base of the bowl for cutting his bread. Immediately in front of him is a small loaf of homemade bread with one end cut off of it.
The painting, entitled “Grace”, is by Rhoda Nyberg, & was painted from an actual photograph that was taken in 1918, by her father, who was a photographer from Bovey, Minnesota.
The person in the picture & painting is Charles Wilden. He was a peddler who sold foot-scrapers. Charles Wilden is immortalized as a person to whom God was THANK-WORTHY.
Receiving a visit, a card, or call, or text, food, or whatever—from a church ministry group or from an individual, for something that you had been part of, in God’s service, that helped-out a person, or family, or situation, & thus being ministered to thru Salem Baptist Church.
•Such things always cause you to fall on your knees & THANK God!
•THANK-WORTHY To You
Giving God THANKS is as heartfelt, & simple, & easy as my being unable, in my own strength, to put things together during the week, for your sakes. I call upon God continuously thruout the week, as I wrestle with giving voice to the truthfulness or veracity of the Scriptures in it’s open, unabashed, & public presentation.
•THANK-WORTHY To You
Application:
?Is YHWH-God THANK-WORTHY To You?
?Are YOU someone by & in whom God is MAGNIFIED?
?Do YOU MAGNIFY God in your life/living?
CONCLUSION:
Visualization:
Recall...
As the shade provided by the trees, & the constant awareness of animal & plant life, become personal sources of calm in Christ!...
So, I must MAGNIFY God’s name!
*So, God’s people, both individually & gathered, must MAGNIFY GOD!
Action:
To Magnify God In Your Life, God must be...
5. THANK-WORTHY To You(:6-7)
1. BOAST-WORTHY To You(:1-2a)
2. SHARE-WORTHY To You(:2b-3)
3. FREEING To You(:4)
4. JOY-WORTHY To You(:5)
Pnt# 5 only! presented 07/13/2025am to:
Salem Baptist Church
1618 Salem Rd.
Bennettsville, SC 29512
Pnt# 2 only! presented 06/08/2025am to:
Salem Baptist Church
1618 Salem Rd.
Bennettsville, SC 29512
