3 Ordinary Ways to Magnify the Lord

Listen to the entire episode:

"Service and the Kingdom of God"

"Glorifying God in the End of Life"

"God Really Loves Us"

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Dannah Gresh: Is there someone in your life who stands out as a person who really magnifies the Lord?

I’ll wait.

Got her in your mind?

When someone asked me that recently, one person came immediately to mind: my friend Colleen Chao, who is now with Jesus. Colleen was a wife, a mom, a friend, and a brilliant author. But when I picture her, the first thing I see is her smile.

And that smile was hard-won. Colleen spent the last years of her life battling cancer. There were diagnoses she didn’t want to hear, treatments she didn’t want to endure, and losses she never would have chosen. But somehow, the harder life got, the more clearly you could see Jesus in her.

That smile never lost its glow—because its source wasn’t her circumstances. Its source was Christ. Colleen magnified the Lord. Her life made Him look as big and beautiful as He really is. And isn’t that what we want our lives to do?

I’m your host, Dannah Gresh, and today on Revive Our Hearts Weekend, we’re going to hear from three women whose lives challenge me to make much of Jesus: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Colleen Chao, and Erin Davis.

They’re going to show us three very different ways to do it: Serve. Suffer. Sing.

Three ordinary words. Three powerful ways to magnify an extraordinary God.

We’re starting with Nancy. You know, serving can become a bit of a Christian cliché. We serve in the nursery. We serve on a committee. We sign up for a service project. But Jesus calls us to something deeper than doing acts of service. He calls us to become servants.

Mark chapter 10 tells us that “even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (v. 45). That’s sacrificial love. It lays down convenience, preferences, comfort, self. And when we live that way, people get a clearer view of Jesus.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has spent the last twenty-five years modeling that kind of life in ministry—but also in the quiet, ordinary places most people never see. Here she is to tell us more about that.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: As I was preparing for this series, I came across a passage that has really spoken to my own heart about this whole matter of serving. In fact, let me ask you to turn there just for these last few moments. First Peter chapter 4, verses 10 and 11.

God really used this passage in my heart over this past weekend. Someone on our staff communicated with me that they needed someone to go speak in Dallas this past weekend. They knew we had these recordings coming up and that I had a lot going on, but there was a need for someone to go help out in our ministry. I was asking the Lord, “Do you want me to be available to go do this?” We decided to pray about it overnight and see what direction the Lord would give. When I woke up the next morning, I had this passage on my heart.

God used this Scripture while I was preparing to speak on servanthood to prompt my heart, “You need to be available to take that day-and-a-half and go and serve in this way.” I thought, How will I do this with all we have coming up in a big recording week? Here’s what the Scripture had to say.

First Peter chapter 4, verses 10 and 11, “As each has received a gift.” That word, gift, is the word "charisma." It’s a gift of grace. God has given each of us some gift of grace. And what are we supposed to do with those gifts? “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another.”

You know what that word "serve" is there? It comes from the word diakonos. It’s a related word: Use it to deacon. Use it to serve. Use it to minister to one another.

God has given us spiritual gifts, and we’re supposed to use those to serve others, “as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” That word "grace" is the word charis. It’s the word related to charisma, gift and grace, very similar words.

Whoever speaks [If that’s your gift that God has given you, use your gift of speaking to serve others] as one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves [If your gift is hands on, practical acts of service, then use it to serve others] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies (v. 11).

We serve because God has given us a gift, and we’re called to use it to serve others. God not only gives us the gift but gives us the strength to use that gift in serving others.

And what’s the purpose? “In order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belongs glory and dominion forever and forever” (v. 11).

Someone asked me the other day, “What’s your definition of serving?” I was working on this series, and I had to kind of stumble around I’m not really sure what my definition is, but I think I came up with one based on this passage.

Serving, in the sense of biblical servanthood, is faithfully using whatever gifts God has given me by His grace. Faithfully using whatever gifts God has given me. Using them, not squandering them, not wasting them, not ignoring them, not hoping someone else will use those gifts; but using whatever gifts God has given me for the benefit of others, to serve others.

How do I do it? By His strength, not my own; and for His glory, not my glory. Faithfully using whatever gifts God has given me.

It’s a gift of grace God has given me, and I do it for the benefit of others, and I do it with the strength that God gives me. I do it for God’s glory, not my own.

As I meditated on that passage, I thought, “God has given me a gift to minister His Word; I need to get to Dallas. How am I going to do it in this busy week? I’ll do it with the strength that God supplies. Will I get anything out of this? It doesn’t really matter because it’s not for my glory, it’s for God’s glory.”

Some of you know the name Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators. That was one of the largest Christian organizations in the world. Dawson Trotman has now been with the Lord many years, but the story is told of years ago when he was visiting Taiwan on one of his overseas trips. During that visit he hiked with a Taiwanese pastor back into one of the mountain villages to meet with some of the national Christians.

As they hiked the roads, the trails were wet and their shoes got really muddy. Later after the trip someone asked this Taiwanese pastor what he remembered most about Dawson Trotman. This was this great American leader of this Christian organization, and without hesitation that national pastor said, “The thing I remember most about Dawson Trotman is that he cleaned my shoes.”

He cleaned my shoes. Imagine when that humble national pastor woke up the next morning and realized that this big leader from America had gotten up before him and washed the mud off his shoes from their hike.

That makes me ask, “What will people remember most about me?” Will they remember that I could multi-task? That I could do all kinds of tasks and jobs? Will they remember that I was a speaker? Will they remember that I was an author? Will they remember that I was a leader of Revive Our Hearts? Will they remember that I had a lot of talents or abilities or got a lot of things done?

You know what I want them to be able to remember? She was a humble lover and servant. She cleaned my shoes. She got her hands dirty. She got into my life. She ministered to my practical needs. She loved me. She gave. She served. She was selfless. She was a servant.

What will people remember about you? Will they remember that you were a servant? What will your folks remember, gals, when you go off to college? Will they remember that you served? Will they miss you because you were such a servant in your home?

What will people remember about you, moms, grandmoms? That you were a servant?

Let every person use the gift that God has given him to serve others as good stewards as God’s grace. Whoever serves, do it by the strength that God supplies, that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Dannah: Yes! God is glorified by servant-hearted, shoe-washing disciples. I’m so grateful for my dear friend, Nancy, and her example. Becoming a servant is one way we magnify the Lord. 

Another way we bring him glory is in the midst of suffering. Now, don’t tune out. I know that when I hear about suffering for Christ, well, I’d rather skip that part of glorifying God. I just don’t like it. But God does redeem it for His glory and our good.

Of course, we’re going to hear now from Colleen Chao. As I mentioned, she battled terminal cancer for many years, all the while testifying to the goodness of God. Her joy-fueled smile in the midst of suffering made Jesus more beautiful to me, and to so many who knew her. Let’s revisit a conversation Portia Collins and I had with her a few years back on the videocast Grounded.

Dannah: You know, you have one of the brightest and most beautiful smiles of anyone I've ever met. And if you watch the whole video, which you can find on our website, in the episode notes, you'll want to see that whole 10 minutes of Colleen’s story. You end the video with such laughter. You call it, I think, a cackling laughter.

Colleen Chao: Totally.

Dannah: What do you call it? Sass and laughter. How are you doing? We videotaped you in August. You said that was a goal, that you would maintain your sass and your laughter? How's that going, a few months later?

Colleen: Yeah. God is so gracious Dannah. It's amazing. The things that I pray for in the darkest days, He gives so abundantly and usually not in my timing. It'll show up a little later than I think it should. But He's just been so gracious to give so much laughter. It's definitely woven in with some dark moments that are just ugly and messy and awful. But I think that highlights the gift of the laughter even more. There's a beautiful mix of emotions and moments. But I'm just so grateful when I get to laugh so hard. That's Jesus, that's not me.

Portia Collins: Amen, amen, amen. Well, you have most certainly touched my life. I know that you've touched so many lives, and you are glorifying God in the end of your life. I just want to know, what is the secret to living with such joy, rather than bitterness and frustration?

Colleen: That’s such a good question. I'm sure both of you would agree that it's the years and years and the weeks and days and months that lead up to different kinds of suffering—big or small—that prepare us to have joy and Jesus, and to experience the supernatural moments of laughter and cancer. It's rooting myself in the Word. I started reading the Word, the Lord caught my heart on fire for His Word when I was 11. And honestly, there have been very few days that I've not been in the Word in one way or another. I'm 45 now, and it's just such a sweet thing. 

You don't have to start when you're 11. But I just see the richness and the depth and the power of the Word in my life; and not just to have head knowledge, but to meet Jesus in His Word, and to experience His presence and experience His truth that works day in and day out. It's real, and it's powerful, and it's alive and active. So, I just see so much of that is the daily steeping experience of the presence of God through His Word and through prayer.

Portia: I know there are no perfect answers, but that was totally the perfect answer. Give me if I may ask . . . As you know, we think here at Revive Our Hearts that you are a part of the Revive Our Hearts family. 

Colleen: Ah, thanks!

Portia: You are, you are. 

Dannah: It’s true.

Portia: How has this ministry been a part of preparing you for this journey?

Colleen: Well, it's so neat as I've thought more and more about when did I first start connecting with Revive Our Hearts? My mom gave me a book by Nancy when I was probably 19, 20, 21. I'm really bad with dates, so I could be off. But right around there. It was on having a devotional or daily time in the Word and . . .

Dannah: A Place of Quiet Rest.

Colleen: Yes, that was it. That was totally it. And then, Dannah, I read your book on singleness and purity. I forget that title. What was that?

Dannah: Well, have a few, maybe And the Bride Wore White.

Colleen: Yes, And the Bride Wore White. So those are the earliest books I remember way back. And then, I was digging through files maybe a year or two ago and found a Life Action Ministries catalog or magazine.

Dannah: That was our parent ministry. 

Colleen: Yes, there's all these little roots of Revive Our Hearts in my life. Over time, just the different articles and the blogs and the speakers here and there just that have faithfully over time ministered to my heart. I just love that the ministry has been faithful in this day and age that's just rich to my heart, that it's still ministering to me more than two decades later, what a gift.

Dannah: Praise the Lord. You know, we're glad to be a very small part of your very brave journey. As I'm sitting here with you, I'm thinking of friends I have who are facing some scary things. I have a friend who is facing cancer. I have a friend whose daughter is fighting leukemia. Death is impacting us and looking us in the face. Others are praying for miraculous healings for friends. I wonder if you could share some Scripture that's been giving you hope in recent days.

Colleen: Yeah, 2 Corinthians actually. I was just looking at this this way. There's so many Scriptures, but 2 Corinthians has been so rich. I've listened to it again and again and again. It says, 

We always carry the death of Jesus in our body so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body, for we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that Jesus' life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh. (4:11) 

And that Scripture is so rich to me. And our world is desperate to see this right? Our bodies, constantly, are being given over to death. We're all on death row, right? In a sense, this is reality for all of us. But it's so that Jesus' life will be displayed. I think sometimes we cling so tightly to our life and to our health and to our comfort that we miss out on displaying Jesus' life, because ours is in the way.

Dannah: Wow.

Colleen: That's just strengthened me so much through this journey.

Dannah: Hmm, what a good truth.

Portia: This is why I love you so much. Because it's like I can just sit at your feet forever. You teach me so much. 

Dannah: Yeah.

Colleen: Right back, it’s mutual.

Dannah: We’re gonna miss this sweet friend and sister, even as we rejoice that she’s with the Savior she loved so much. She truly magnified the Lord through suffering. Her joy and wisdom SHINE in the short film our team put together to celebrate her life. We’ll link to that in the transcript of today’s episode at ReviveOurHearts.com. We want you to continue to learn from Colleen.

So. We’ve talked about magnifying the Lord through serving and suffering. Let’s get to the fun part: singing. We magnify the Lord when we praise him, and my good friend Erin Davis, who many of you know and love—she’s going to encourage us in this practice.

Erin and I have a friendship that spans more than thirty years. She serves the Lord beautifully as an acquisitions editor for Moody Publishers. She and her husband Jason, who works for Revive Our Hearts, have four boys.

Curious why God made us to magnify him through praise? Here’s Erin.

Erin Davis: Researchers have tracked us, and they have found that, when we are thankful, there’s a little command center in our brain that releases two chemicals: serotonin and dopamine. You’ve probably heard of them before. They are “the feel-good chemicals.”

This is the same part of your brain that controls your emotions and your behavior. It also controls higher order thinking skills like focus and attention.

So, science has caught up to God’s Word and shows that being grateful, which is a choice never contingent on our circumstances . . . And as Christians, we’re grateful towards someone. We don’t just send our gratitude out into the universe. No. We’re grateful to God.

And science is telling us that when you live grateful, it’s actually good for your body. Well, that’s what the psalmist said. “It’s good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High.”

So think of that in light of the psalmist’s thesis, that “the righteous flourish.” Because what we now know is that gratitude helps us flourish at a neurochemical level. In other words, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord.”

What about singing? What happens in our brains when we sing?

Well, it reduces cortisol. That’s another chemical you’ve probably heard of because that’s our stress hormone. And researchers tell us that our brains are bathing in it.

They’ve also found that singing releases aminoglobin A, which is an antibody your body secretes to fend off infections. So think about that.

God wired your body so that when you sing, you are less likely to get sick. It improves memory function. It improves your mood. And the results get even better in a group.

One study found that those of us who sing together have a strong sense of well-being and a meaningful connection to each other. I know that because I sing with my friends in church every Sunday.

God knows what He’s doing.

I want you to begin to think about Psalm 92 less like a warm fuzzy. It’s not really just an observation: yes, God’s people flourish. Because it is possible to be a follower of Jesus and not flourish.

I don’t think it’s just an observation. And I don’t think it’s just a suggestion. I think it’s a challenge. “The righteous flourish like a palm tree. They grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”

So it’s a challenge God’s Word is issuing. Because of our love for the Lord, and as an outworking of His work inside of us, we are committed to flourishing lives. We should ask, “How? How do we flourish?”

The answer’s really simple. It’s so simple we sometimes miss it. And it’s so practical. It’s right there in verse 1. We do the things Scripture calls us to do. We thank God for all He has given us, and we sing praises to Him whenever we get the chance.

I want you to keep the “it is good” from verse 1. It’s one continuous thought that takes us through the rest of that stanza.

Verse 2: “It is good to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night.”

Verse 3: “It is good to sing to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre.”

The psalmist is saying, “Grab what you’ve got.” If it’s a lute, if it’s a harp, if it’s a lyre . . . I don’t have any of those lying around my house. Those were common stringed instruments when the psalmist was writing this. But we could say, “Bang a pot. Make a tambourine out of paper plates and beans.” (You remember doing that when you were a kid?) Drum on your steering wheel, or use what you’ve got in your vocal chords and make some happy noise. Praise God.

Why? Verse 4: “For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hands, I sing for joy.”

We don’t have to over spiritualize this. This is a practical, real-time blueprint for flourishing.

The psalmist is saying, “The righteous can flourish, and here’s how: declare God’s steadfast love in the morning and His faithfulness at night.”

Dannah: Amen. Thanks to Erin Davis for inviting us to sing to the Lord! You know, we were made to praise. I had a doctor friend tell me last week that when we sing, our vagus nerve is stimulated. This activation engages the parasympathetic nervous system, which lowers your heart rate, reduces stress hormones like cortisol, and shifts your body into a calm "rest and digest" state. Isn't it amazing that God blesses us as we bless Him. 

Hey before you go, I can barely do a podcast on magnifying God without telling you about a whole team of mostly twenty-something women who are doing just that and–in the process—are calling teen girls to do the same. I’m talking about my Wonder team. Wonder is our outreach to teen girls. At the heart is an app with video-based daily devos. Wonder is a place where young women can open their Bibles daily alongside trusted mentors who make the Bible come alive. And there are digital rewards that keep her coming back. If your daughter, granddaughter, or little sister hasn’t checked it out yet, she can get the Wonder app for FREE on her phone’s app store. Learn more at ReviveOurHearts.com/Wonder. 

You know, we’re able to provide this podcast and projects like Wonder because you make this kind of Bible-saturated encouragement possible. This month when you make a donation of any size, we’ll send you Devoted: Six Women of the Bible Who Said “Yes, Lord!” The women featured in this study exemplified a steadfastness we’re called to imitate. I hope reading this book will encourage you to say “Yes, Lord!” right alongside them. 

Well next weekend, we’re continuing to magnify the Lord together, and we’re going to zoom in on a particular topic—anxiety. How do we magnify the Lord when our inner world feels as though it’s unraveling? Is it even possible? We’re gonna explore that together.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh.  We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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