“Oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His Name together.”
– Psalm 34:3
Before I read Psalm 34:3, let me just remind you if you’ve not already and if you’re listening to this on April 23rd, that Secret Church is tonight, secretchurch.org. If you’re not already signed up, I would encourage you to be part of it. Thousands of people from every state in the United States countries around the world, Cambodia, Indonesia, Peru, Zambia, so many different countries coming together to pray, dive into the word and see God’s purpose for our lives. So secretchurch.org. Let me encourage you to be a part tonight.
As Christians, we have the joy of magnifying the Lord with me and exalting His name together.
So here’s why I’ve got to read this first and lead us in prayer according to it. This is the theme verse for my marriage. When Heather and I were getting married, we chose this verse to summarize our prayer for our marriage. Oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. The purpose of marriage is magnification of the Lord. It’s a joining of two people for this one purpose, to magnify the Lord, exalt His name together. Two people who are saying, “I want to exalt His name in my life. You want to exalt His name in your life. So let’s do this together.”
And so this has been the theme of our marriage. And so I want to pray this over marriages represented in those who are listening right now. And then I want to pray this over the church. So in a broader way than just marriage that we would see the theme of the church, our local churches, and us together in the broader church. Oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. This is what we exist for. This is why we are joined together as brothers and sisters in Christ, in local churches and the broader church, that we might magnify the Lord together, that God might receive more glory through us, all of us together. Then He would any of us individually. There’s a picture of what happens when people come together to exalt His name.
Praying Psalm 34:3 Over Marriages
So, oh God, I pray for every husband and wife. Every marriage represented in those who are listening right now. God, I pray Psalm 34:3 over every one of those marriages, including my own marriage. God, we pray that our marriages would lead to magnification of your name. God, we pray that you would help us as husbands to love our wives as Christ loved the church. That Christ might be magnified in the way we love our wives.
God, we pray for wives to respect and love their husbands as the church respects and loves Jesus. That the picture of the church’s relationship with Christ might be magnified in the way wives love and respect their husbands. God, we pray that you would help us in our marriages to magnify you, to do more together than we even would do a part to exalt your name in the union that you’ve entrusted to us.
Magnify Him
We pray that that would be the theme, the cry of our hearts on a continual basis that you might be exalted in us together. And then oh God, we pray the same for us in your church. God, I pray for every local church represented in those who are praying right now. And I pray for a powerful unity in local churches for the magnification of your name. That brothers and sisters in local churches would be exalting your name together. And then God that we would do this together in a day where there is so much fragmentation in the broader church.
God, we pray for Psalm 34:3 spirit over your church today that we would say to one another magnify the Lord with me. I’m not against you. Let’s do this together. Let’s magnify the Lord together. Let’s exalt His name together. God, we pray for Psalm 34:3 to be the cry of our churches, and your church together during these days that the world might see the majesty and glory of your name. And then we might say to the world the same thing, “Magnify the Lord with us.” Let’s exalt His name together that we might draw people in.
Draw people To Magnify, To Exalt
By the way, we love each other the way we’re glorifying you. God, that you would draw more and more people to magnify your name and more and more people to exalt your name together with us. God, we pray Psalm 34:3 over our homes and over your household, the church of the living God. May Psalm 34:3 be true. Oh God, help us to magnify you, exalt your name together. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
