1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:26,000 I think, over the course of the five days, we had, not all at the same time, but we had, I think, 19 different kids from a bunch of different families, and I'm thankful for all of our teachers and for all of our help and support and getting snacks and keeping everybody safe and crafts and games. We had a good time, and so we are very thankful for that. 2 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:45,000 We're going to take a look at our theme verse this morning, "Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together." If you want to follow along, you can do so either in the Bible. There are some sermon notes in the bulletin if you want to kind of keep an eye on where we are going. Let's pray, and we'll dive right into it. 3 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:55,000 Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus. We thank you for grace. We thank you for all your goodness. We thank you for all the kids that were here this week, learning about your goodness and your greatness. 4 00:00:55,000 --> 00:01:02,000 We just thank you for all of your blessings. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 5 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:22,000 All right. Psalm 34, verse 3. When we talk about magnifying, there's two kinds of magnifying we can do. There is the magnifying where we take something small and make it look big, like in a magnifying glass. 6 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:38,000 There is also a magnifying where we take something that is big and it helps us to see it and its bigness more clearly. So, for example, a telescope would help us to see something that is big more clearly. 7 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:47,000 For example, when we look up at the stars, what do we see? A whole bunch of tiny little dots. Maybe we can see some difference in colors. 8 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:56,000 One of our VBS crafts this week really helped us see who could see red and who could see green very, very clearly. We learned a lot about ourselves during that. 9 00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:09,000 But what a telescope does is take for what us, our little tiny dots, seemingly an infinite distance away, and with the right equipment, it takes it and we truly see their great signs. 10 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:24,000 And the remarkable thing about God is whether you look at His creation with a magnifying glass and you blow it up to see all of these tiny, beautiful details, we see God's glory. 11 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:32,000 But also through a telescope that shows us the biggest and greatest, and we see God in those things as well. 12 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:48,000 And for us to magnify, it doesn't mean that we're trying to make God look greater, but rather we are focusing our attention on Him in such a way that He is what we are seeing and rejoicing in. 13 00:02:48,000 --> 00:03:07,000 And so as we went through this week, we talked about Jesus and the little children. How the Creator, John says, the Word made flesh, as He is sitting surrounded by people with all kinds of needs, and some of them probably very important, and a bunch of children wanting to come see Jesus. 14 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:16,000 And the disciples say, "No, no, no. Jesus doesn't have time for you." What we find is Jesus says, "Let the little children come to Me." 15 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:28,000 And then in the midst of the storm, as Jesus is with His disciples, the one who keeps the whole universe going still cares about the disciples in the boat. 16 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:39,000 And with the woman at the well, this woman who felt unworthy and distant and whose life was filled with sin, saw the love of Jesus personally in her life. 17 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:50,000 And as Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the middle of the night, we looked at on Thursday, we find that Jesus comes to save the world, and that includes us. 18 00:03:50,000 --> 00:04:05,000 And then on Friday, we looked at the fact that God cares about us. And we looked at how Jesus teaches about worry, and we see that God is faithful not just in those big things in our life, but in the smallest ones as well. 19 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:16,000 And one of the games that day that kind of really hit home in a very picturesque way for me as an adult was that the kids were all given pieces of paper, and Jerome had them write down their worries. 20 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:25,000 They didn't have to show them to anybody. You know, some people wrote a few things. Some couldn't think of anything. Some had, you know, a manifesto of worries, right? 21 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:36,000 And you take them and you crumple them all up, and then they tried to deal with all of their worries on their own in this scrambling game with paper, and it just didn't work. 22 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:48,000 And one of the things that we learned, not just in the lesson, but in the game, is that we take those worries of brokenness to God, and He's the one who brings us peace. 23 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:59,000 Now here, when we hear, "Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together," right, it's easy to magnify the Lord when things are good. 24 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:08,000 When life is easy, when it's bunny rabbits and ice cream, right, it's easy to be joyful and to be excited and to say, "Let's magnify the Lord." 25 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:19,000 But the question in this verse is not, "Magnify the Lord when things are good," but, "What do I do when things are not good?" 26 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:27,000 What happens when it doesn't work out? What happens when life is difficult? What happens when life is painful? 27 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:37,000 What happens when my plan isn't working? What happens when my expectations, what happens when I am broken? 28 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:51,000 And this is where the 34th Psalm comes to us with such power. It's not just in those moments of joy, but this Psalm comes to us in those moments of life. 29 00:05:51,000 --> 00:06:01,000 Now some Psalms, if you ever look through the book of Psalms, some Psalms are just sort of there. It'll say like, you know, Psalm 17, and then the Psalm just starts. 30 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:19,000 Now there are other Psalms that have what is called a superscription. And sometimes that's a thing like a title, like trust in the Lord. Sometimes it's an author, a Psalm of David, or a Psalm of Korah, or a Psalm of Moses. 31 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:30,000 Some Psalms in their superscription have the musical terms or instruments, you know, with a lyre, with the drums, with the flute. 32 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:40,000 And then sometimes Psalms in their little superscription that goes at the top tell us the circumstances that surround these words. 33 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:47,000 And so let's take a look at the circumstances that surround these words, "Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us 34 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:57,000 exalt his name forever." Now the superscription to this Psalm starts with a Psalm of David. And to sort of put this into context, 35 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:07,000 Israel has asked for a king from God. Saul is ultimately chosen as king, but King Saul chooses to pursue his own agenda 36 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:15,000 and his own authority rather than submit to the authority of God. And God in 1 Samuel 15 will reject Saul as king. 37 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:29,000 And so in 1 Samuel 16, God sends the prophet Samuel to this little town, and he's sent to anoint another young man who will ultimately replace Saul as king of Israel. 38 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:43,000 And so Samuel goes to the house of a man by the name of Jesse, and Jesse has seven sons. And the prophet is coming to dinner, and they don't know why necessarily the prophet's coming to dinner, but he is. 39 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:52,000 And so out of his eight sons, Jesse invites seven of them to dinner with Samuel. 40 00:07:52,000 --> 00:08:02,000 So if you've ever felt left out, the beginning of David's story is for you, right? Family dinner, the important prophet over all of Israel. 41 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:11,000 He's coming to dinner, and your dad goes, "All right, guys, prophet's coming for dinner, but not you." Right? You go to the field. You take care of the sheep. 42 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:23,000 And David, in that moment, is left out. And what will happen is each of Jesse's sons will stand before Samuel. 43 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:30,000 Samuel will say, "Oh, man, this guy looks like a king." And the guy goes, "It's not him." And he goes, "That guy is definitely king material." 44 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:35,000 And God goes, "It's not him." And he goes through seven of these sons. Finally he goes, "Do you have any more sons?" 45 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:39,000 They're like, "Yeah, we got the little guy, and he's out with the sheep." 46 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:46,000 He goes, "Bring him in." And it is then that David is anointed as the future king of Israel. 47 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:53,000 And so in this strange turn of events, in 1 Samuel 16, 48 00:08:53,000 --> 00:09:00,000 Saul, as he sort of descends deeper and deeper into madness, oppressed with an evil spirit, 49 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:06,000 it turns out the only thing that really can calm Saul's spirit is music. 50 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:09,000 And so somebody asked around, "Does anybody know anybody who's good with music?" 51 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:13,000 And they said, "Yeah, there's this guy who lives over in Bethlehem. 52 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:17,000 His name's Jesse. He has a son. His name's David. He's a gifted musician." 53 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:24,000 And so they go, and they hire this young man, David, to come and play music before Saul 54 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:28,000 during these fits of madness. And in this weird turn of events, 55 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:35,000 the guy who is going to replace Saul becomes Saul's personal musician. 56 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:42,000 And more than that, he becomes his friend in 1 Samuel 16:21. It says that David came to Saul 57 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:49,000 and entered his service, and Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. 58 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:55,000 And so what seems to happen between 16 and 17 in 1 Samuel is that David will, 59 00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:01,000 sort of as needed, leave home, go play music for the king to calm him down, and then goes back home. 60 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:05,000 And then what happens is Israel's sort of traditional enemy, the Philistines, 61 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:09,000 and they don't just come with an army, they come with a giant. 62 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:14,000 And arranged on either side of this valley are God's people on one side, the Philistines, 63 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:21,000 and they're giant on the other, and there is a challenge to Israel and David, not in the battle, 64 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:29,000 but bringing food to his brothers who are fighting. Here's this giant challenge in single combat, 65 00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:34,000 one of God's people, and God's people are quaking in fear. And David, this young guy goes, 66 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:41,000 "Well, I'll take care of it." And everybody goes, "No, you can't." And Saul, grasping at straws, goes, 67 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:48,000 "Well, let's try it out." He doesn't fit Saul's armor, so David steps out to face this giant 68 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:55,000 who is significantly bigger, significantly more experienced in war, complete with armor and weapons, 69 00:10:55,000 --> 00:11:03,000 and David simply has his sling, but he has something else. The power of God is with David. And David defeats this 70 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:11,000 giant. And so David stands between God's people and God's enemies, and through God's strength defeats 71 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:20,000 them. And in 1 Samuel 18, David then becomes best friends with Saul's son, Jonathan. And at the end 72 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:28,000 of 1 Samuel 18, he marries Saul's daughter, who was a genuine princess. However, in between the beginning 73 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:38,000 and the end of this, David is playing music before the king, and Saul, overcome with jealousy, throws a 74 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:45,000 spear at him, not once, but twice. Right? We sometimes joke when people are singing. It's like, "Well, 75 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:51,000 let's get some tomatoes. Let's get some rotten tomatoes and throw at them." Sort of as a joke, but here is Saul 76 00:11:51,000 --> 00:12:00,000 trying to kill David as David seeks to calm his spirit with music. And so you begin to see this 77 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:09,000 relationship that was once deep and mutual, where Saul loves David greatly, has become contentious. By 1 Samuel 78 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:17,000 21, David is running for his life. And he's running out of places to run. And in verse 10, it says, "David 79 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:24,000 rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath." The giant that 80 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:34,000 David kills back in 1 Samuel 17, his hometown of Gath. How desperate does David have to be 81 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:45,000 to go to this place where his archenemy was from? And it is not going well in Gath. In 82 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:51,000 fact, let's read together what happens in the town of Gath. And David took these words 83 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:55,000 to heart and was very much afraid of Achish, the king of Gath. He's been seeking asylum 84 00:12:55,000 --> 00:13:00,000 there, so he changes his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their 85 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:05,000 hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his 86 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:09,000 beard. And so he comes seeking asylum. He gets there, and he realizes that these 87 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:13,000 people don't like him, so he pretends to be absolutely insane in hopes 88 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:17,000 that they will simply dismiss him. That's exactly what happened. Then Achish 89 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:21,000 said to his servants, "Behold, you see this man is mad. Why 90 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:25,000 then have you brought him to me? Do I lack mad men? 91 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:29,000 Have you brought this fellow to behave, that you have brought this fellow 92 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:33,000 to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow 93 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:37,000 come into my house?" And while it is tragic for David 94 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:41,000 because he has nowhere else to go, the words of Achish are a little bit humorous. 95 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:45,000 He goes to his servants, "Why would you bring another weirdo in here? 96 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:49,000 Like, I have enough." And David is sent away. 97 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:53,000 Now look what happens next. He departed 98 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:57,000 from there. Nowhere else to go. No other 99 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:01,000 civilization to go to. And he escaped to the cave of 100 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,000 Abdullam. And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went 101 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:09,000 down there to him. So David is now hiding in a cave. His family 102 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:13,000 comes to him, but so does everybody else. 103 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:17,000 And everybody who was in distress, and everyone who 104 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:21,000 was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to 105 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:25,000 him, and he became the commander over him, and there were with him about 106 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:29,000 400 men. 107 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:33,000 So here is David. He's gone from a family 108 00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:37,000 in Bethlehem to the service of the king, to deeply beloved by the 109 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:41,000 king, to being friends with the king's family, to marrying into the king's 110 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:45,000 family, to defending God's people, to now a hunted fugitive, and 111 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:49,000 he is in a cave. And Psalm 34, 112 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:53,000 the superscript reads this. A Psalm of David. 113 00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:57,000 When he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that 114 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:01,000 he drove him out, and he went away. 115 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:05,000 David writes this Psalm, 116 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:09,000 and he writes these words about magnifying God, 117 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:13,000 and proclaiming his goodness. Not when everything was good. 118 00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:17,000 Not when he was married to the princess, and his best friend was the prince. 119 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:21,000 Not when he was the king's most beloved musician. He writes these words 120 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:25,000 as he is living in a cave. 121 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:29,000 So I want us to think for a moment, how do we respond when things don't go well? 122 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:33,000 I don't know about you, but when things don't go well, it's real easy to complain. 123 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:41,000 It doesn't take a lot of effort for us to see all of the problems and all of the brokenness. 124 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:45,000 And when things aren't going well, not only do we complain, so often we begin to compare. 125 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:49,000 Well, why is this happening to me? I'm a better person than they are. 126 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:53,000 Why can't they have this struggle? 127 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:57,000 Why do they have what's good and I have what's bad? 128 00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:01,000 Why is this happening to me? 129 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:05,000 So we complain and we compare, and then we become angry. 130 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:13,000 And what happens in our anger is that we begin to snap and lash out at people who have no part of our problems. 131 00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:17,000 They may even be trying to help and support and be close to us, 132 00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:24,000 but because of the anger over the brokenness in our life and because of the comparison and the complaining, 133 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:29,000 we begin to attack those who've had nothing to do with our brokenness. 134 00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:33,000 And here's what is so remarkable about this psalm. 135 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:37,000 Now there are times David feels emotions like this. 136 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:41,000 But Psalm 34 is not one of those places. 137 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:46,000 David, it would seem at least to me, he has every right to complain. 138 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:52,000 He has every right to compare, "I'm the godly one. Saul's ungodly. He's got a palace." 139 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:57,000 But David says this, verse 1, "I will bless the Lord, 140 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:06,000 at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth." 141 00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:08,000 How does David do it? 142 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:12,000 How can he say as he's running for his life, there's no good food, 143 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:17,000 his princess is in the castle, there's no bed, there's a cave filled with spiders. 144 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:21,000 How can David say, "I will bless the Lord at all times"? 145 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:24,000 Does he just have really forceful will? 146 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:28,000 Does he just sort of keep calm and carry on? 147 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:30,000 Here's what David does that's so wonderfully. 148 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:34,000 He humbly takes his heartbreak to God. 149 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:36,000 It says this in verse 2, 150 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:40,000 "My soul makes its hope to the Lord, not in itself. 151 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:44,000 Let the humble hear and be glad." 152 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:48,000 You see, David will see in this verse, in the next one we read, 153 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:50,000 he humbly takes his heartbreak to God. 154 00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:53,000 And you might say, "Well, why does humility matter?" 155 00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,000 It's because pride trusts in itself. 156 00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:58,000 That's what Adam and Eve do in the garden. 157 00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:01,000 As through their rebellion against God, everything breaks. 158 00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:04,000 One of their first responses is to try to fix it. 159 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:06,000 And it doesn't work. 160 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:11,000 Abraham and Sarah do it both by going to Egypt and with Hagar. 161 00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:14,000 Israel, as they come into the Promised Land with Joshua, 162 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:18,000 and a nation approaches them with a treaty rather than going to God. 163 00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:21,000 Scripture says they just made the decision without consulting him. 164 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:24,000 It ends in heartbreak and brokenness. 165 00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:30,000 More recently, Saul has lost the kingdom of Israel because of this very same attitude. 166 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:32,000 That I've got it figured out. I can do it. 167 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:39,000 And David, by contrast, says, "My soul makes its boast in the Lord. 168 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,000 Let the humble hear and be glad." 169 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:46,000 And David here is saying, "I don't have it all together, but I know the one who does." 170 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:55,000 And David understands that this is bigger and more difficult than he can handle, and he's not trying to solve the problem by himself. 171 00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:58,000 He's saying that God is in control. Look at the humility in verse 4. 172 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:04,000 "I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all of my fears." 173 00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:08,000 David doesn't look at his problems and say, "I can figure it out." 174 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:14,000 Or like we do sometimes where we say, "Well, I don't want to bother anybody with my struggles." 175 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:21,000 You see, there is no too small with God. David just simply says this, "I sought the Lord, and He answered me." 176 00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:28,000 You see, David trusts God for both his present and his future. In verse 7, he'll say this, 177 00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:33,000 "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers Him." 178 00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:38,000 And maybe at some point you've heard somebody say something like they don't want to do something, 179 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:42,000 and somebody's trying to get them to do it, and they'll say, "Well, you and what army?" 180 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:46,000 Or I guess if you're Dave, "You and what navy?" 181 00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:52,000 The answer here is God's army. And here's David, and he's in a cave, and he has 400 people with him, 182 00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:57,000 but they are not the cream of the crop. Yes, there are some mighty men who fight with him at times, 183 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:00,000 but what does it say? It's people who have no money, and they're in debt. 184 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:05,000 The people whose souls are bitter, their hearts are broken, and they have nowhere else to go. 185 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:13,000 And David, in this moment, looks both to the present and to the future that God's provision. 186 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:17,000 And he said, "It is God's army that surrounds me." 187 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:23,000 And in part, it may be likely that David is thinking back to that time 188 00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:33,000 where Jacob, who comes back to the Promised Land, about to face his brother Esau, 189 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:39,000 who he has lied to, who he has cheated, who he has treated poorly. 190 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:44,000 And as Jacob is coming back, Jacob comes back toward the Promised Land. 191 00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:48,000 And Jacob will say, "This is God's camp. This is where God's army is." 192 00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:51,000 And we'll call the name of that place Manahem. 193 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:59,000 And maybe David, in this, is saying, "Just as God sort of took care of Jacob and encamped around him, 194 00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:03,000 God will encamp around me." 195 00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:11,000 In 2 Kings, there's a story that's familiar. A man by the name of Elisha is being hunted by an enemy army. 196 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:17,000 And his servant goes out and looks and sees the enemy army surrounding Elisha. 197 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:19,000 And he says, "What are we going to do?" 198 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:23,000 And Elisha prays like this, "Lord, please open his eyes that he may see." 199 00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:32,000 And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 200 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:43,000 Think about how courageous we would be if we, like David, like Jacob, like Elisha, understood that we are not alone in the midst of our struggle. 201 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:51,000 But David also looks to the future. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall not be ashamed. 202 00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:59,000 Now this does not mean that there will never be any hurt or brokenness or struggle. It means the end of the story isn't here yet. 203 00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:06,000 That through the power and strength of God that it turns out okay in the end. 204 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:12,000 And what happens when we magnify God is we start putting things back in the right order. 205 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:19,000 Rather than magnifying ourself and our goodness and our plans and our strength, when we magnify God, 206 00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:23,000 what we're doing is putting things in light for the proper Lord. 207 00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:29,000 The one who hears our prayers, the one who is with us and surrounds us and encamps with us, 208 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:36,000 the one who brings all things together for the good of those who trust Him. 209 00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:45,000 So David says this: "Paste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him." 210 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,000 And I love this picture, especially if you've ever been around little kids. 211 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:54,000 So today, I think I would call today's children, I don't know if you've ever watched Bluey. 212 00:22:54,000 --> 00:23:02,000 They're very much the Bluey generation, right? You've got, you know, Bluey and Bingo and, you know, Mom and Dad Bandit, 213 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:07,000 and I can never remember the mom's name. Chili! There we go, right? And it's wonderful. 214 00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:12,000 Now, our kids, especially the older ones, they were what we call the Daniel Tiger generation. 215 00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:18,000 And if you've ever watched Daniel Tiger, the lesson in every Daniel Tiger show is always in song, right? 216 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,000 If you have to go potty stuff and go right away. 217 00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:27,000 And so the one we always quote to our kids is this, "If you try new food, it might be good." 218 00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:32,000 Now, I'm not going to sing it for you like Daniel Tiger does, but what David is doing, 219 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:35,000 and if you're part of the Daniel Tiger generation, you'll understand this. 220 00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:41,000 He says, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good." He says, "If you try new food, you're going to find out that it's good." 221 00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:48,000 What he is saying in the midst of the darkness of the cave, in the midst of his struggle, running for his life 222 00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:53,000 in a place filled with spiders, he goes, "Magnify the Lord." 223 00:23:53,000 --> 00:24:01,000 And in magnifying the Lord, it rearranges all of his worries and his fears under the power of God. 224 00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:08,000 And he says to us, "Paste and see that the Lord is good." 225 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:13,000 Try it. Be your hope. Magnify it. 226 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:18,000 But all of those other things, by doing that, it reorders everything in our lives. 227 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:23,000 Blessed is the man in the breath of Jesus. Amen. Let's pray. 228 00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:27,000 Father in heaven, help this to be true of our life. 229 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:34,000 Maybe there are some who have looked and who have seen, but have not tasted your goodness. 230 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:40,000 We just ask that you would help them to see your glory and your greatness. 231 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:49,000 Both in the beauty of your creation, in things like butterflies' wings, and in the greatness like the mountains and the stars of the seas. 232 00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:54,680 May we see you, and may we glorify you, and may you reorder our life in a way that is perfect.