Magnify

Intro

It feels so good to have everyone in one room lifting up the name of Jesus together led by our children. There are so many great things about VBS. if you grew up in church you probably have your favorite memories. I asked a few kids this week including my own and most of them said the snack was their favorite, and I respect that. But the reason we do this is to teach children about God so they can have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

And every flower that made, every snack that served, is to facilitate that purpose. So this morning I just want to briefly tell you with the help of our kids about what we learned about God this week and to give you a challenge on how all of us whether you are 8 or 80 can apply it to our lives.

Psalm 19:1–4 NIV

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

The theme for the week was Magnify. the idea is that our creator is magnified when you look closer at his creation. This is true all over creation. Like this passage points out all you have to do is look up day or night and see the beauty of God in his creation. Without a single word the glory of God is declared throughout the entire earth. but here is what so beautiful about our God. The closer you look at his creation the more incredible he is.

1.God invites us to look closer.

God isn’t like the wizard of Oz terrified that if we pull back the curtain we are going to discover something that is going to make us realize he isn’t who he says he is.

Who can tell me what we the story was day one of VBS?

We saw that Jesus invited the children to come to him. He invites all of us no matter how old to come look closer. Because the closer we look the more we magnify the more we see the qualities of God that magnify him. Magnifying glasses

He loves when we are curious about him, he’s the one who made us that way. We wants us to be curious about him. Because the closer we look at creation, His word, or to him in prayer. We will not be disappointed. It will always lead us into deeper admiration of who he is.

I want you to think when was the last time you were curious about something about God? a child like curiosity and you followed that until you got the answer you want? We change a lot as we get older but a desire to curiously look closer at God should not be something we lose it should be something we celebrate. Because God is so big there are always new ways to marvel at who he is regardless of how close we look.

We also learned on day one that God sees me.

God sees

Me

God saw the little children coming to him when no one else did and instead of turning them away he saw them. God sees the children and he also sees you today. If you are here today and you go through stretches of not feeling seen. God sees you and as our kids learned this week he does for more than just see you.

On day two as they looked closer at God. The kids learned that God not only sees them but he also cares.

And they learned this through the storm of Jesus calming the storm.

Jesus calmed the

Storm.

Make storm sounds.

the story of Jesus calming the storm taught them to magnify God’s care.

They learned that just because we go through a storm, we go through difficult circumstances does not mean that God doesn’t care. Jesus cares about you. we see this all over God’s word and creation when you look closer.

One place we see this when you look at snow. It has been so hot this week I am almost ready for a little snow I don’t know about you guys. but a snowy mountain side is beautiful but when you look closer. and you use a magnifying glass on a individual snow flake. you dont just see frozen water. You see creativity, order, beauty, and intentionality. every single snowflake is different. and it reminds us that if God puts that much care into something that melts within minutes, How much more care has he put into creating and looking after you.

If you are here today and you are going through a difficult time and you don’t think anyone cares for you or sees you. I just want to know this morning that your wrong. Jesus not only sees you but he cares for you.

Does Jesus Care for you?

Yes he does?

and he even takes it a step further.

Because on day three our children learned that when we look closer we magnify God’s love.

we learned this through the story of Jesus meeting the woman at the What? Well.

God not only cares he also loves.

When you look closer at some things you see how beautiful they are like a snowflake. other times you look closer at something and realize its messed up, its flawed, its broken.

You guys ever cleaned your room when you were told but you really just threw the clothes and toys under the bed or in the closet? So when your parents walk in it looks good, but when your parents look close they realize its still messy.

Well the woman a the well looked good on the outside but when you looked closer you realized she was messed up, flawed, and broken, but just like your parents don’t love you less when they find the dirty clothes under your bed Jesus knew she was messed up, Jesus knew how flawed she was, Jesus knew how broken she was and he still loved her. He knew every bad thing she ever did and still loved her.

Jesus knows everything you have ever done. Even the things you are ashamed of that no one else knows. And he still says I love you. He knows about the dirty clothes before he even steps into the room and still loves you.

Jesus sees me

and he loves me

On day four the children learned just how much God loves them. When they looked at the story of Jesus and Nicodemus.

Nicodemus was an older religious man. He had been in church his whole life. But when Jesus showed up his curiosity caused him to look closer at Jesus. Nicodemus had lots of questions, and he knew enough to take them to the one who has all the answers.

It is in this conversation that we get the most famous verse in the Bible

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

We see here the same thing Nicodemus did when he looked closer. Because God cared, and because God loves, he sent Jesus so we can be forgiven.

On day four they magnified God’s forgiveness.

When God sent Jesus he put action to his care, and his love.

He didn’t care from a far, he didn’t love from a far. He wanted to bring us close to have a relationship with us. But he couldn’t do that without forgiving our sins. because our sin is a big deal it separates us from God. Our sin is such a big deal that the only way for us to be forgiven was for Jesus to die on the cross for us. and because of his love for us he did it. So that you and me could be forgiven for our sin that unforgiven would cause us to be seperated from God forever in a terrible place called hell.

kids if you only remember one thing this week remember that Jesus loves you so much that he died to save you.

On the last day we learned about how Jesus taught about worry.

What did Jesus teach us not to do?

Worry

and in this story see God’s faithfulness be magnified.

If God sees me, he cares for me, he loves me, and he forgives me. We don’t have to be worried because God is faithful to always be those things. God is not going to wake up one day and stop seeing you, he is not going to one day decide he doesn’t care for you, he is not going to love you any less tomorrow than he does today, he will not take back the forgiveness that you have received if you have asked for it.

Our God is faithful. So when we are worried or anxious about the things in or lives we remember that God is faithful. regardless of our feelings or how things seem around you. God still sees you, God still cares for you, God still loves you, God still forgives you because God is faithful.

What do we remember when we are worried?

God is

Faithful

As we close today there is something I want us all to consider. We have spent this whole week talking about the idea of magnifying God. that when we look closer it causes us to want to exalt and magnify Him. This was our theme verse this week

Psalm 34:3 CSB

Proclaim the Lord’s greatness with me; let us exalt his name together.

That is what we are called to do as believers. Proclaim the Lord’s greatness and exalt his name. To magnify him. but not just with our songs or motions. but with our lives.

What I want you to do this morning is take the magnifying glass and put it on your own life. When people look closer at you do they see the greatness of God by how you live your life. Is God magnified when people look at your life. Do they see God’s care, his love, his forgiveness, his faithfulness on how you treat others. Can your coworkers, your spouse, your classmates, your kids see the characteristics of our God the way you do when you look at a snow flake. or do they see someone who pretends to have it all together on the outside but the reality is the dirty laundry is poking out from under the bed.

My challenge for all of us today is to examine our lives, and identify the things that don’t magnify God, and give them over to him. He knows everything you try to hide and it hasn’t scared him away. He is still there. So we can do what we were created to do, the same thing the mountains, the snowflakes, the caterpillars, ants, lizards, sun, moon, and stars were created to do. proclaim the Lord’s greatness.

Let us all look at our lives this week and identify how can we better magnify the God who created us, sees us, cares for us, loves us, forgives us, and is faithful to us when people look at our lives this week. So That they can experience the care, love, forgiveness, and faithfulness, that we have received. Lets leave today ready to magnify him.

What are we going to do?

magnify him!