(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

It is a good thing to come into the house of the Lord, worship together, come on.

And God does amazing, amazing things.

And really today, that is where we're gonna land in our message.

We're gonna be talking about what it means to come into the house of the Lord, worship together as a family, as a family of believers, and what it does in our life.

You know, the Hebrew people back in the day, they understood that worshiping together in the house of the Lord is what really made them better.

And some people today are not better because they don't understand the power of what happens when we get together as a people and we worship our great God together, what can begin to happen in our life?

What does this worship do?

And we're gonna learn today what that worship does in our life and in our hearts.

So if you have your Bibles with you, I wanna invite you to open it up to Psalm 122, Psalm 122.

And this Psalm is a song that the Hebrew people would sing as they were going to worship in Jerusalem, what they referred to as the house of the Lord.

Back in the day, the Hebrew people would travel from a distant place and they would all travel to Jerusalem approximately, you know, three times, at least three times a year, where they would go into Jerusalem and they would have festivals and they would worship the greatness of God and who he was in their life.

And Psalm 122 is the third song that they would sing in a sequence of songs as they were traveling to Jerusalem to worship God.

And it's known as the songs of ascent.

And it's about 15 songs in your Bible from Psalm 120 to Psalm 134, 135, whichever one it is.

But it's about 15 songs there that they would sing together by say together.

On the way to Jerusalem to get in their heart, you know what, the power of what it meant to worship God together.

They understood that when they worship God together, it's one thing to worship God by yourself in your living room, in your shower, in your bed thing, but something supernatural happens when we worship God together as a family, God shows up in a powerful way and does amazing things.

So this is the third song in a sequence they would sing together as they were traveling to these worship festivals.

And the song starts off like this.

It says, I was glad when they said to me, the Psalmist says, let us go to the house of the Lord.

In other words, he was happy about going up to the house of the Lord.

He says, man, I was glad to be going to the house of God, to Jerusalem to worship together because I understood God was gonna do something powerful.

So I was happy to do it.

In other words, he understood that they got to go to church.

They didn't have to go to church.

And he had a glad heart about getting in the house of God because he knew that when he got in the midst of God's people in God's house, that amazing things would begin to happen.

Jerusalem was a place that they would go to recalibrate their broken lives.

Jerusalem was a place the Hebrew people would go to get the foundational realities of God created you, God redeems you, and God provides for you.

Jerusalem was a city that was fortified, and it was amazing, and they would go there and they would do preaching, and certain rituals were performed to remind them that God forgives sin and makes it possible to live a life full of incredible purpose.

And so Jerusalem was the place that they would go to to unify their hearts around this goodness of who God is.

And they understand that worship performed together changed their life.

And can I tell you, it changes ours too.

If we begin to understand what worship does.

Worshiping together is vital for you to understand the power of God in your life.

Worshiping together with God's people is vital for you to begin to understand the foundational realities of what God can do through his people.

Worshiping together is vital if you want your brokenness to be recalibrated and change forever.

And again, they were a people that, sometimes life was fragmented for them, but this coming together as a people begin to do something amazing in their hearts and lives.

And so as we continue to own the Psalmist rites, he was glad to go up to the house of the Lord, we begin to understand what worship does, what worship does in our heart when we do it together.

And so I wrote down a few things, you know, from this Psalm that begins to help us understand what coming into the house of the Lord together and worshiping together can do in our lives.

And the first one, it gives us a framework to operate by.

It gives us a framework to operate by in our life.

Let's look back at the Psalm, Psalm 122, verses one through four.

The Psalmist says, I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord.

Is anybody glad to be in the house of God today?

Come on.

And he goes on to say, and now here we are, standing inside of your gates, Jerusalem, a fortified place.

Jerusalem is a well-built city.

It is seamless, seamless walls cannot be breached, the Psalmist writes.

And all the tribes of Israel, the Lord's people, they make their pilgrimage there.

All the tribes, how many tribes were they in Israel?

12.

And so all the tribes, all 12, unified together as they traveled to this place, though they were diverse.

Some of them had things going on in their life.

They had fragmentation, they had businesses to run, they had challenges that they were facing, they had circumstances they were facing.

But when they traveled to the house of the Lord, they traveled to Jerusalem.

You know what, the strength of Jerusalem did more to them than just walking into a city that was fortified and unified and joined together.

It began to remind them of who God had called them to be as a people.

And I wanna remind you today that when we come into the house of the Lord, it gives us a framework to operate by as God's people in this world that is so fragmented, that is so broken, that has its challenges, and we can centralize our hearts around one God and one truth and one message and leave this place today.

If we truly come into the house of the Lord and we worship God, we can walk out of here with one purpose and do something amazing with our life.

And the reason some of us stay broken week in and week out is because we don't understand the framework.

We're all over the place.

Anybody know anybody all over the place?

They don't have a single focused mission and vision for their life.

They continually stay fragmented all of their life.

They begin to categorize things instead of letting things begin to revolve around the main thing.

They begin to categorize family, work, self, religion, worship.

The Bible says, let us be glad to go into the house of the Lord and let us be glad to worship him because it is a place we can become unified.

We can become to a place where the various groups of people could come together and they could begin to rally around one central truth.

God is who he says he is.

Come on, somebody.

A single truth.

And begin to structure their whole life around that truth.

Around the truth of who Jesus Christ is in our day and age.

Around the truth of what he can do in your heart and in your life.

It can begin to give you a framework to work by every single day of your life.

The writer in the book of Ephesians writes it this way to the church at Ephesus.

He says it this way in Ephesians chapter four, verses three through seven.

He says, make every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit, binding yourselves together with peace for there is one body and one spirit just as you've been called to one glorious hope for the future.

The writer goes on to say there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

One God and father of all who is over all, in all, and living through all.

However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ.

And so the church is the place we can begin to bring those gifts together.

The diversity of the gifts.

The diversity of our thinking.

And begin to centralize those thoughts around who Jesus is and the power of what Jesus can do in our life.

The Bible tells us in Matthew chapter six, it says it this way in Matthew chapter six, I believe it's verse 33.

It says, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

And all these other fragmented things you tend to worry about all day long, they'll be added to your life too.

In other words, he says, begin to think about or put Jesus in the center of everything you do.

That word first, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

It's a Greek word known as protos.

It literally means first in rank and first in order.

But it also has another meaning.

It means that which everything else revolves around.

Kind of like a hub in a bicycle wheel.

In other words, that word protos means, you know what?

Let all the spokes connect to the hub.

And the hub, Jesus will begin to keep that, that all the spokes together so they're kind of headed in the same direction and the tower will begin to roll smoothly and it will begin to carry you forward.

And so what happens whenever we come together in the house of the Lord and we truly begin to worship God, God's bringing all the fragmentation of our life, centering it on Jesus.

Jesus, our risen savior, putting him first, his righteousness, his kingdom first, and our family, our jobs, all the things we tend to worry about can be centralized on him.

And then our life begins to roll and it begins to have traction and it begins to do great and mighty things.

And so I wanna invite you today to be glad when you come into the house of the Lord because if you begin to worship Jesus, it will begin to become the center of your life and your heart and he will begin to make your life work.

It's a framework to wrap your heart and life around.

Let us be glad.

Let us be glad to come into the house of the Lord.

Worship together, sing the song together.

The Bible goes on to tell us what worship does.

The psalmist says let us be glad to come into the house of the Lord.

And he continues on there in verse four of the reason why, and I wrote it down this way.

Worship nurtures our need to be in relationship with God.

See, when we get together and we worship God together with our gifts, our talents, as a family, as a church community, it's one thing to sit in your living room and worship God.

But it nurtures your relationship with God when you come together with the people of God, the family of God, and you worship together.

He says it this way, Psalm 122, verse four.

He says all the tribes of Israel, all, everybody say all.

All. All 12 of them, they're different, but they come together.

The Lord's people, they make their pilgrimage here and they come to give thanks to the name of the Lord as the law requires of Israel.

So the very act of worshiping and praising God begins to nurture the relationship we all need with God.

In other words, we don't come to worship God because we feel like it or we don't feel like it.

We discipline ourself to come to the house of God, whether we feel like it or not, and that act of worship begins to change the way I feel.

But some of us, we come to the house of God and the family of God because we feel like it today, or something else didn't take priority today, but the psalmist here is reminding us that, you know what, we have to discipline ourself in the act of worship of who Jesus is and not just do it when we feel like it or not feel like it because if I'll discipline myself to do the act, it'll change the way I feel.

Let me give you an example.

Most people don't feel like going to work out because typically, sometimes when people start working out, they're maybe overweight, they're weak, and it don't feel good to go to the gym.

But if I discipline myself beyond my feeling to do the act of working out, it'll change the way I feel.

It's the same thing with discipline yourself to worship God.

It'll change your feelings.

Worship isn't based on feeling.

Worship is based on faith and who God is and what he can do in my life and I act on it regardless of how I feel.

Let me give you another example.

You know, I recently had surgery on my neck and post-surgery, they send you to the physical terrorist.

Better known as therapist.

Well, this round of surgery, as I began to go to the physical terrorist, they didn't make me feel good.

So I chose to quit therapy based on what I was feeling and the very act of quitting therapy began to cause a decline in my life because I was basing whether I needed to go to physical therapy based on how I felt instead of what it was accomplishing.

So this past week, my wife, Kim, said to me, I'm tired of you degressing.

And whether you feel like it or not, you better get your butt back down to the therapist.

Come on.

So it can change the way you feel.

What am I trying to say to you?

The very act of worship nurtures your relationship with God.

It nurtures who God says you are.

It nurtures how you feel about God because you were created to be in relationship with God and your feelings will deceive you.

And so you just gotta go ahead and make a defined, you know, a disciplined decision.

I'm showing up and I'm worshiping God together with God's people because how God is working in the world, he's working through the local church and I'm gonna worship him with my heart.

No matter how I feel.

Worshiping God together.

I'm glad to go into the house of the Lord, as Thomas said, because I know it's gonna change everything about my life.

See, it's important for us to understand the power of coming together and worshiping God because it can change everything.

What else can worshiping together do?

It can center us on God's decision of goodness.

God is good.

In spite of what's going on in your life.

God is good.

In spite of your bad decisions and my bad decisions.

God is good.

Even when evil shows up.

God is good.

In spite of the sin that has entered into this world.

And when you come into the house of the Lord, you begin to hear God is good through preaching, through song, and it begins to rejuvenate who you are.

This is how the Psalmist wrote it here in Psalm 122, verse five.

He says, here, here in Jerusalem, where we worship God, here stand the thrones where judgment is given.

In the thrones of the dynasty of David.

That word there in that particular text, judgment, is the decisive word by which God straightened things out and makes them right.

God, God's judgment, it is the space where God straightens things out and makes them right.

That word thrones is where the word of God would be announced from.

And so when you come into the house of the Lord, this is the place that we announce that though things may be wrong, we know a God who is good and can straighten them out in the midst of all the bad in the world.

He is a good God, come on, give him praise.

That's the announcement.

That's the announcement you'll hear from the throne.

From where we worship God together.

This place called Valorous Church.

In these people called the Valorous Church of Family, you're going to continually hear over and over about the goodness of God.

You're going to talk about the results of sin entering the world and how it can destroy your life.

But God in His goodness steps down through Christ Jesus and He forgives sin by His perfected blood.

He rose three days later from a grave to bring life and bring it to the full.

He's a good God.

He will deposit His Spirit in your life if you would so dare believe in this Jesus and the work that Jesus has already done.

He was good before you ever thought about the word good.

He is a good God and He shows up in the midst of anything.

The psalmist says, let us go.

Let us be glad because we're going to the house of the Lord.

I wonder as you get to feeling tired throughout the week, throughout the day, throughout the month, I wonder if your heart could sing that message.

Let us go into the house of the Lord.

His goodness and His mercy is running hard after us.

We want to go in there, have our lives realigned, have our purpose redirected and begin to see Him do what He says only He can do.

God is Rapha.

Literally He is healer.

You're going to hear more about that this evening at 5.30 because some of us don't know God as Rapha.

Some of us don't know the power of Rapha.

God's going to reveal to you tonight how He, Jehovah Rapha, can forever change your life.

You learn the heart of God in the midst of God's people and the diverse pieces working together for a common cause and circling up around Jesus and making Him the center of everything we do.

I don't always like everything the people of the church do.

I don't even like some of the things I do sometimes.

But I gather with God's people week in and week out because I know that God supernaturally is bigger than my preferences and what I think or what you think.

I believe there's power just like the Hebrew people believed there was power.

Bringing the diverse pieces together and going up to Jerusalem and worshiping God, it brought unity and it began to bring great power in what they represented.

So God wants to bring great power into our life.

His goodness and His mercy is chasing us down.

Lastly, I wrote this down.

What does the psalmist say worship can do in our life?

Getting together with the church in worship, he says that it can begin to reestablish peace and prosperity in our hearts.

When you get together with God's people, it can begin to reestablish peace and prosperity in our hearts.

The psalmist here in Psalm 1 in 22, he declares that gathering together week in and week out begins to become an overflow for the rest of your life.

In other words, the importance of gathering together and getting filled up with the things of God in a worship service week in and week out is a privilege.

Because it's like pulling into a gas station and filling up every single week on who God is and what God wants to do.

And leaving the filling station, the gas station, and going out into a world all week long who is beating against you and you overflowing into their life.

The things of God in your hearts.

The psalmist says it this way in Psalm 122, verses 6 through 9.

He says, pray for peace in Jerusalem.

He says, may all who love this city prosper.

Oh Jerusalem, may there be peace within your walls and prosperity in your palaces.

For the sake of my family and friends, he says, I will say, may you have peace.

For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek what is best for you.

Oh Jerusalem, oh church, oh house of God, I will seek what is best for you for the sake of my family, for the sake of my friends, for the sake of my community, for it to overflow out of my heart, out of my life, into those around me and change the world.

And so what happens is we get together in worship and the various gifts come together and we begin to see the power of God show up.

It reestablishes the peace and prosperity that God brings into our life.

My friend, this world is broken.

And so many in this world need an overflow out of our life to change everything about them.

In other words, it can begin to help them praise God in the storm, praise God in the difficult moments, praise God when the church is under attack because we stand together in the house of the Lord, fueled by the Holy Spirit coming together for the kingdom of God.

And let me declare to you, you can't live in this big old bad world by yourself.

You need God and you need His family.

You need to worship together.

You need to make it a priority to be in His house.

You need to make it a priority to fill up every week so you can go into this world and meet the challenges you're going to face.

You need to make it a priority to sharpen your acts.

What do I mean by that?

I don't know how many of you have ever heard the old story about two lumberjacks going into a forest and their job was to cut down all the trees.

They both had an axe.

They both began to chop trees.

And then after a few minutes, maybe an hour or so in that day, one of the lumberjacks stopped and he sit down and he took a break.

And the other one just kept desperately swinging his axe, chopping down trees, mission was chop down all the trees, get through the forest, do the thing.

And so he never replenished the blade on his axe and he kept working tirelessly.

The one that stopped and paused.

And sit down, he brought out a file.

He began to file the edge of his axe, sharpen his axe.

He got back up, he began to cut trees again.

The other one had been working hours, hours tirelessly.

And then the one who stood back up, who had just sharpened his axe, he began to surpass the one, you know what, who had been working tirelessly trying to chop down trees because he paused and he sharpened his axe, he filled up his tank.

See that's what worshiping together does for you, my friend.

It fills up your tank, it sharpens your axe.

And against all odds, you're not just tirelessly swinging in this world.

You're beginning to worship together and realize you're a part of something greater than yourself.

You got a family around you.

You got a family who worships Jesus.

You got a Savior.

You got a rescuer.

You got a healer.

You got a redeemer.

You got somebody who is on your side.

Why don't you get your axe sharpened?

So you need to make a decision today for you and your house.

You will serve the Lord.

Let me speak to the men in the room today.

You need to get some audacity about you.

And you need to tell your family, we got to have our tank filled.

Let's get our butt out of the bed, get to a worship service, not because we have to, but because we get to.

And God's going to fill us up and do amazing things in our heart, in our life, in our family.

Let's begin to make a decision that for us as Valorist Church, we're going to fill this place with the people of God over and over and over again.

Let us be glad.

Let us have a happy heart because today we get to be in the house of the Lord.

Let's give Him praise.

Come on.

Father God, I thank you so much for your house.

Jesus, I thank you for coming to be the head of this body, your family.

We come here and we center our life around you.

We worship you.

We get to do it.

It empowers us to be your people and begin to get through the hardships of life.

Jesus, thank you for calling us in to this moment to be unified together with the diversity, with the various gifts to do great and mighty things.

God, we honor you today.

And we pray as we prepare a place for you to dwell the house of the Lord.

You would show up in a powerful and mighty way because we're being intentional on being your people.

Jesus, we worship you today.

And if one has never started their relationship with you, God, by putting faith in who Jesus is, that He came to die for their sin, He rose from a grave so that we could be reconnected to our Creator and begin to operate by Holy Spirit horsepower.

God, I pray today would be the day of their salvation.

Today is the day they would surrender their own thoughts, their own ways, and they would realize that there is one that came with goodness and mercy in the midst of their storm and forgives them of sin.

He has a name and His name is Jesus.

God, may they put their faith in this Jesus today and begin the journey.

And may you empower them as they discipline themselves to be a worshiper among your people.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.