Sermon Central
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Exploring The Magnificent Treasures Of God’s Word Series
Contributed by Lalachan Abraham on Jan 15, 2013 (message contributor)
Summary: God’s name represents His authority, yet He has exalted His Word as the highest authority, above all other authorities, and even higher than the authority of His own name! It suggests that we will only understand His name (His authority, nature and attrib
Exploring the magnificent treasures of God’s Word
Today I was reading Psalm 138 and came across a fascinating statement, “You have magnified Your word above all Your name.”
A prayer in the Bible commonly known as the Lord’s Prayer contains the phrase, "Hallowed be Your name," this Prayer is simple and Spectacular.
The first three petitions are about God’s name, God’s kingdom, God’s will.
The last three are about our daily needs, our forgiveness, and our holiness.
Why does the Lord’s Prayer contain the phrase, "Hallowed be Your name"? Our names are precious to us....they reveal who we are. They are a personal connection, a unique part of us. Names in Biblical times were very important, as they revealed a person’s character. In Jewish thought, a name is not merely an arbitrary designation, a random combination of sounds. The name conveys the nature and essence of the thing named. It represents the history and reputation of the being named.
Jewish people had about 16 different names for God in the Hebrew Old Testament. Each name reflected a different aspect of God’s character, so God’s names were considered by the Jews to be just as holy as God Himself. In fact, God’s names were and are so holy to the Jews, that they never write or pronounce His name lightly for fear of bringing disrespect to it and to God. So To hallow a thing is to make it holy or to set it apart to be exalted as being worthy of absolute devotion. To hallow the name of God is to regard Him with complete devotion and loving admiration.
God’s name is of the utmost importance (Neh 9:3) therefore we ought to reserve it a position of grave significance in our minds and hearts. We should never take His name lightly ( Exd 20:7; Lev 22:32), but always rejoice in it and think deeply upon its true meaning. God’s name speaks of His great power and majesty, His perfect character and absolute holiness. God’s name, the I Am, reveals the fullness of His nature. All of God’s nature and attributes are embodied in His name. "O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth,..."(Psalm 8:1) His is the name which is above every name (Phil. 2:9).Yet God positioned His word as the most prominent, predominant and preeminent . How can anything – including God’s word – be magnified above His name?
Bible says “I will worship toward Your holy temple, And praise Your name For Your loving kindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your word above all Your name.” (Psalm 138:1-2)
This is an incredible truth. God has done something marvelous, way far beyond all human power and ability — He has magnified His word. God has made His word great; He has made it powerful; He has promoted it down through the ages; and with His word He does great things.
In many places throughout the Bible, the word magnify is the same word translated glorify. Glory is the beauty of God unveiled! Glory is the magnificent radiance of His power and His personality. Glory is all of God that makes God, God, and shows Him to be worthy of our praise and our boasting and our trust and our hope and our confidence and our joy! Glory is the external elegance of the internal Excellencies of God. Glory is what you see and experience and feel when God goes public with His beauty! Glory is also the one word answer to the most frequently asked question found on Christian lips. To every question that begins, "Why did God . . . ?" there is only one answer: "For His glory!" Cf. Eph. 1:6,12,14; 2:7; 3:8,10,16. God’s own glory is what He aims for in all He does. That is why God’s glory must be what we aim for in all we do.
Therefore, magnify and glorify can be used interchangeably. And magnify means “to make bigger.” That word “magnify” has the idea of making something large. It also means to boast, or to increase. The ultimate goal of every Christian should be to make our God and His word as large as possible in our lives. Normally, we magnify things that are small and irrelevant. Most of us have become masters at enlarging the problem and minimizing God and His Word. So, when we “magnify the Lord" we become the lens to help others to see Gods character and goodness, His grace and mercy, and Divine attributes of our Lord. We become the tool and the magnifying glass for another to see Him more clearly. What do you value? What’s big to you? You can magnify the Lord and make Him and His Word bigger than any problem. Psalm 69:30 says “I will magnify God with thanksgiving.”
