To Magnify God-5

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”!