The Nature of God And Worship

 

Hello everybody, my name is Dean Davis and this is “Multiply,” the podcast that provides a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.

When my wife Gail and I got engaged in 1979, we were a part of a group of young adults at our church.  There was a wonderful song the group sang from Psalm 34. We sang, 

O magnify the Lord with me, 

And let us exalt his name together.

For I sought the Lord and he heard me

And delivered me from all my fears.

This song was precious to Gail and me for many reasons.  We had each, separately but recently, suffered violence at the hands of a criminal. But the Lord delivered us from all our fears. We wanted to exalt his name together because of that powerful deliverance from fear. And we were planning to be married; we wanted our lives jointly to magnify the Lord.

Worship is a wonderful experience. To worship God is to give glory to God who is great and who is holy. To worship God is to honor God and to recognize his goodness.

You are a village church planter. One of your many roles, at least in the beginning, is to be a worship leader.  This is an awesome responsibility and not to be taken lightly. As a worship leader, your job is to help your people magnify the Lord, honor the Lord, and recognize his goodness.

But to help others honor the Lord and magnify Him, they must know who he is and what he has done. Otherwise, they may believe and say things about God which are not true.  When you clearly tell God’s big story from Genesis to Revelation, you prepare your people for worship.  When you declare the Gospel story about a broken world full of people who cannot find a way to escape brokenness, you prepare people for worship.  When you tell how the Creator of the Universe sent his Son to live and love and die and rise again to save this broken world, you prepare your people for worship.

People who know God’s big story worship him in spirit and in truth.  People who understand the sacrificial love of God who loved the world so much He gave his one and only son to die for the sins of that world… people who understand that are ready to worship.

So tell God’s big story; tell the Gospel story. Tell it well and tell it often. Then when you read the Scriptures, the people will say “Amen!” from their heart and from their head because they have experienced its truth in their lives.

And don’t just tell the magnificent works of God from the Scriptures; testify to the kind and gracious work of God in your life as well.  Let others testify about what God has done for them, forgiving their sins, meeting their physical and material needs, delivering them from addictions, restoring broken relationships with family members, healing their diseases. These testimonies too reveal the character and nature of God.  These stories too prepare God’s people to worship him in Spirit and in truth.

O magnify the Lord with me, 

And let us exalt his name together.

For I sought the Lord and he heard me

And delivered me from all my fears.

As we get to know the nature and character of God better and better, we long to magnify Him more.

This has been “Multiply.” And I’m Dean Davis asking, “Who will you share this encouraging word with today?

#EncouragementForVillageChurchPlanters #MagnifyTheLord #Worship