Apr
28

Magnifies the Greatness of God

Featuring Bob Kauflin Posted on April 28, 2010

“Great is the Lord,” David reminds us, “and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:3). David shows the appropriate starting point for worship. It involves thinking about, magnifying, and responding to the glory and splendor of God. Many of those we lead on Sunday morning are eager to join us and have been magnifying God's unsearchable greatness all week.

Others are distracted. It could be anything from the superficial to the serious—deadlines, unpaid bills, a friend's unkind comment, a lab test for cancer, the thump-thump noise the car is making, a rebellious child, some be setting sin. Or a million other details of life.

What size does God appear to be when our mind is preoccupied with all the cares, worries, and concerns of life? Very small. But God is not small. He is great. Magnifying and cherishing his greatnessis at the heart of biblical worship. As J. I. Packer reminds us: 

Today, vast stress is laid on the thought that God is personal, but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are—weak, inadequate, ineffective, a little pathetic. But this is not the God of the Bible! Our personal life is a finite thing: it is limited in every direction, in space, in time, in knowledge, in power. But God is not so limited. He is eternal, infinite, and almighty. He has us in his hands; we never have him in ours. Like us he is personal; but unlike us, he is great.

A worship leader echoes David's invitation in Psalm 34:3: “Oh, magnifythe Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!” The first priority of our time together is to magnify the Lord. I want to help people remember that Godis bigger than their problems and joys, greater than their sorrows and successes, more significant than their tests and triumphs.

Because we lose perspective so easily, God needs to become bigger inour eyes. He never changes in size—it just seems that way.

It's like looking up at the stars. To the naked eye they appear like tinypinpoints of light, barely visible against the black backdrop. Twinkling dots suspended in vast darkness. We can walk outside and barely notice them. But when we look through a high-powered telescope, we're awestruck by whatthey really are: massive spheres of raging fire, millions of times larger than theearth, brighter than our human eyes can bear. The stars haven't changed. Our vision has. 

Our great privilege as worship leaders is to help people see through the eyes of faith how great God has actually revealed himself to be. He doesn't change. We do. 

Tags: , , ,