Psalm 122, if you have your Bibles with you and you brought them, Psalm 122. And it's such a wonderful psalm to meditate upon today and to think about, and we're going to give our attention to this wonderful psalm. This is the word of the Lord. A song of a sense of David. I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together, to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. Their thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they be secure who love you. Peace be within your walls and security within your towers. for my brothers and companions sake I will say peace be within you for the sake of the house of the Lord our God I will seek your good and that's the ending of wonderful Psalm 122 well 2020 has been quite a year I don't think anyone would want to relive this and we would gladly if we could fast forward to 21 and know that this stuff wasn't going to happen And I think we'd skip right over this, wouldn't we? It's interesting that my first sermon in this building, as we had finished the building and we had completed the project, there was such excitement. You remember that? When we walked in here and everyone was coming up to the house of the Lord and full of great excitement and joy as we had completed this great project that had been in the works for years and planned for years. Somebody pointed out what I said in that sermon. I never remember what I say. So somebody has to tell me and somebody sent me a message and said, do you know what you said in that first sermon? I want to read it to you. This is from Psalm 84 that we just sung out. The psalmist was taken captive far away from Jerusalem where he came to worship. What a painful thought that is. I would never want to know that experience to be banished from worship. In this country, we are free to come to worship. But do we really appreciate the ability and the freedom to come? What would it do to me? What would happen to me if it was taken and I could not come? Would it affect me? Would I come to a deep realization of how carelessly I treated it when I had it? that was preached to you. That was preached to you on the very first service in this brand new building that God gave you. As you open up Psalm 122, what's so wonderful about Psalm 122 is it begins with, I was glad when they said to me, let us go up to the house of the Lord. There's real joy and there's real happiness in saying that, that the people are ecstatic to do what is most important in life. In your whole lifetime, when has the gathering been taken from you? I'm not talking about the elderly who've had it taken. At the end, that's an agony that we haven't thought about much and that we don't minister too much. We just, because we've never faced it. But this is a, not like this has it been taken. This is a good gauge and test that had come upon us within a few months, everything was ripped away and everything was ripped away. The irony, the strange phenomenon to all of it is not much else for most people was taken away in this. Oh sure, there were some who lost their lives. There were some who lost jobs, but for most in this congregation, I don't think that was the case. You were able to sit in your homes and watch me drinking coffee. You had a good go of it. Things really weren't all that bad in the scheme of things of what they could have been for most of us. What if next time in a shutdown your homes were taken? What if next time in a shutdown all your money and bank accounts were empty? What if next time you were scrambling for food. See, I think this is the kind of moment to pause and realize that life in America here has been so good, hasn't it? We've had it so good that we forget what is most important because of the common good things that we've all had in this life. What if revolution's coming? What if it's all gone? What do you have? That's an important question, isn't it? What do you have? Did we take for granted what was most important? Bibles in our hands? Preachers to preach? Buildings to come to? A church family to embrace? Fellowship to bless the heart? Praise from the lips to make glad the heart as we sing together in joy and make glad tidings of coming to know that God is in our midst and God is in our presence who surrounds us with blessings and grace. It's been rightly said the people who don't end up in heaven never really wanted it on earth, and it showed. This is why today this particular psalm should refresh us, and this particular psalm should give us a new perspective on things. I feel as I'm preaching, I don't feel like I've preached in years, to be honest with you, doing it in front of a screen, is awful. I want you to know that was one of the worst experiences to do. I did it because I loved you, but not fun. Here, the imagery of Psalm 122 is they've come back. They've come home. And they had been banished for a time. And they've come back on return to the Lord's house. Psalm 122 is so comforting, and it's so happy, and that's the intention. The intention is to let you experience the joy of the psalmist as he's describing what he's describing and understanding what he's come back to after exile and after banishment. There are levels to this. There are multiple applications to this psalm, and that's what makes it so special. In the Jewish experience, which you described here, in the life of Israel, this was an important thing that he's describing here, and it captures for us the very blessings that we enjoy in the church. And it also captures what is coming when we finally enter in. I'll get there. But what a psalm. I want to briefly break it down with you to consider the happiness of our gathering together and then to appreciate what we are receiving when we gather together through the description that's given. So you have the happiness, and then the description of our gathering, and then the responsibility in our gathering. So there's a responsibility in this gathering that challenges us a little bit. You'll notice in verse 1 that David says here, this is the psalm of David, great King David of Israel, that my heart was overjoyed when they said to me, let us go up to the house of the Lord. Worship was not a chore in the Old Testament. Worship was not boring. Something was being proclaimed to them. The structure here is important. It's a psalm of ascent. In Psalm 120, began the psalm of ascent. You'll notice here that they were far away from the Lord's house. If you were to go back and look at these three psalms together, 120, 121, and 122, the first psalm, they're far away from the house of the Lord, thinking about the house of the Lord. Will we ever get back to the house of the Lord? And then in Psalm 121, he's looking, and he's really close, and he says, my eye will lift up my eyes to the hills, and there it is. We're almost there. I see my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. He is like the mountains that surround Jerusalem, and there were mountains there in the distance that look towered over the little compact city that we're about to describe. And he said, that was a beautiful imagery for me because I saw that that's how the Lord shelters his people. But Psalm 122 is so wonderful because they've entered the gates now. They stepped in and they've come to do what they wanted to do and worship the Lord. So David's saying, I was overjoyed because this was the attitude of God's people. Notice that. I was overjoyed when they said to me. It's a bad experience when the pastor is preaching and no one wants to be there, right? It's a great experience when everyone loves to be there and is excited and joyful coming up to the house of the Lord. And that's what David's describing. He's saying, this was the greatest joy for me to see God's people full of happiness and full of joy to come and worship the Lord. What a song. All the way back when God had delivered Israel from Egypt, and brought them out of bondage. Remember what he said? The reason was, I'm doing this so that you can come worship me in the wilderness. I have to confess, I wonder what the aftermath of this virus would be on the church broadly and the church here. What would it do? Would it have the effect of purging? Would it purge those who didn't really want to be here? Would it really drive people back? What would be the effect of the virus? That was sort of an open-ended question that people had. Many pastors were wondering. And would it then make greater the excuses of people to want to not come? What is captured in this psalm is kind of contrary often to our experience. That the greatest challenge of life and the greatest undervalued thing of life is the worship of the Lord. That's why the world's not here today. That's why people laugh at this. That's why people think there's nothing important to this. But that's not what's described here. What is described in Psalm 122 is the redeemed saying, oh, this is wonderful to be able to come back with our brethren and enjoy the Lord. You see why there's levels to this. For the Jews, this was a long, arduous journey to come to Jerusalem for these great feasts that they would come up to and Sabbath worship that they would come up to, The roads were dangerous. The roads were full of trouble. It was a hard journey in life. And after a long journey, after days of sleeping in the wilderness, you could imagine them in the morning saying, today we get to go and enter in. And they stepped in the gates and they looked around and said, we've arrived. We got here. That's the description. All the sorrows and all the frustrations and all the difficult experiences in the valley of the shadow of death, Psalm 23. we're forgotten. And all of a sudden, all that hardship was replaced with joy. Sorrow comes in the night, joy in the morning, right? It's replaced with joy. We're here. We arrived. Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Lord. Hear the exuberance in that? This is what all the saints throughout history did when they gathered. David wrote this psalm because he wanted God's people to view worship this way, which is so antithetical to our hearts at times, that it is the happiest of things we do. It's the most relieving of things we do. We receive actual grace and actual help and actual strength, and God is in the midst of the city. We will not be afraid. The city will not be moved. I'll come back to that in a minute, but stay with me here. It's symbolic for us because this is the rhythm of our lives, isn't it? What's described here. It's the rhythm that God put in place. Who would have put in place seven days, and there's always been throughout history one day of rest? Who did that? Who orchestrated that? Who put that into place? It's built into the rhythm of your life. Even, I think, years ago, the Soviet Union tried to tamper with the day of rest, and it had disastrous results making a full-on seven-day work week. My guess is, as we come here today, this is a really challenging moment for us and something that's really helping us to think about a lot the challenges that we've just been facing. 2020, I said. I've never seen in my life, and a lot of you are older than me, I've never seen in my life so much chaos. I've never seen in my life so much confusion. I've never seen in my life so much danger and conflict. But to have the church taken well that was really disorienting because I never realized how much even as a pastor my strength came from Zion and the rhythm of life that had been built in where there is real effective power in the gospel where there is real effective grace given through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus made known to me it was just taken for granted it has a great renewing effect renewing our minds as Romans 12 says coming out of the world and stepping into Zion every week you know it's what you do you come out of the world and you step into Zion and I'm not talking about these walls that's the experience that's described in the scriptures Think about this. Death is all around us. The masses are in rebellion. Destruction and misery, Romans 3, are the ways. Governments are crumbling. People are hurting. Everything around us is giving way. Nothing is going as planned. My heart was glad to hear the welcome sound. Now I understand that. The call to seek Jehovah's house of prayer. Our feet are standing here on holy ground. When we gather, the cares of the world are set aside and we come into the holy presence of the Lord who formed us, who leads us by green pastures and gives us all that we stand in need of. What a sweet gathering it is. This is how the New Testament describes our worship. You don't understand that, but this is exactly, I have it as I should, how the New Testament describes what we do and what's happening when we gather. Listen to this. You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable angels and festal gathering. You know, that's how God describes your gathering, that that's what's happening when you worship. It's kind of really, now after all this says, it's a bad thing to sit home and watch the tube, isn't it? What an insult to God. Right now around the heavenly courts is a sea of glass, is crystal. You have come to Mount Zion to assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. To God, the judge of all. That's an important concept, isn't it? To the spirits of the righteous made perfect. They've already entered in. And to Jesus. That's who you're coming to. The mediator of the new covenant. that's your home. But there's something even more here. It captures the end of our journey, doesn't it? When I was in college, I'll never forget finally finishing up my last exam. And after all those years of exams and working hard and studying, I'll never forget when I walked out of the campus for the last time and the exam was done, I'd never experienced that feeling. It was complete relief and freedom, like I had finished something. When I left Linden on my previous call, I remember we're all in the car, packed up with all of our junk. And I remember looking in the rearview mirror at Linden, and it kept getting smaller and smaller. And I thought, my work's done. I'm never going back. You ever had that experience? All of life is like this. the burdens and the sorrows and death and pain and sin as we walk through the valley. And when we die, we enter in for good, you see. And you stand in those gates and you walk in and you look around and there's your city. There's your city. That's the joy of this psalm. See, you're taught it in a rhythm of life and then you enter in finally. It's beautiful. You've reached the gates when your eyes close in death or if Jesus comes today, you've reached the gates and you've arrived and there's no more pain and there's no more sorrow. There's no more division. There's no more sickness. There's no more fighting. There's no more murder. There's no more death. It's all gone forever. That's the gift of Jesus for us. Salvation, eternal life, heaven, a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Come behold the city of our God. Let me tell you about it. David's captivated. He gives us a beautiful description of the gathering, which I think is meant to call back our loyalties to the Lord's house. I think that's the purpose of this, to call back our loyalties to the Lord's house. What are you doing that's most important in life? He says here, he's describing when he gets in the city, he looks around, and New Jerusalem language is all on the brain because that was the city that Abraham really looked for. Not the one that would be built on a land parcel, but the heavenly Jerusalem that we're all going to, the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness shall dwell. And he says, I looked around, I looked at the city, and you know what I saw? It's bound together. It's compact together. It's interesting language. It has this tight structure, the city. Bounded on two sides was Jerusalem that descended into a valley. And remember, Psalm 121 said, when I saw it, that's what I saw, that there were these mountains over Jerusalem and this little, this city that was protected, that came down, this city that was protected by God himself. I'm here. Here's what I see, he says. It's a happy people. They're compact together. They're unified. Doesn't that mean a lot right now? And they're secure. You just experienced the agony of separation. You want to go through that again? And that was not nearly what it could have been. Separation is confusion. Loneliness. No security. He walks in Jerusalem and he sees the opposite. Security. Bounded together. I see unity. It's one people. As a matter of fact, you know, Revelation says the city is the people. And then he follows up with, say, the tribes of the Lord go up to give thanks to the Lord. They thank him. They thank him for all that he's done. Salvation was a gift. It was done through the blood and the righteousness of Jesus. We're thankful for so great a salvation. We will forever be praising and thanking our God for what he did for us. No chaos in this city. No riotous disruption in this city ever. Because the king sits in the midst. The imagery is beautiful. This was a place of true justice. Well, that's another important point, isn't it? Thrones are there for judgment, he says. Thrones are there for judgment. Thrones of the house of David. There's a good government there. there are two blessings of a good government do you know what a blessings of a good government is the two blessings of a good government are citizens of the city are protected against violence and there's justice both are crumbling in front of your eyes both are crumbling i want to see protection of citizens i want to see true justice but i am afraid that too many of us have forgotten the perfection of these things belongs to Zion, not the U.S. In this life, no government has ever achieved it perfectly. None ever will. It was so beautiful even that in a theocracy they came close that God would bless the kings. He would show us the good kings where these two things flourished in the theocracy. Justice and protection. But when the bad kings came and there was lawlessness, these things crumbled in front of people's eyes. War, chaos fell into the nation. Well, justice is the talk of the towns today. Protection of the citizens. Our talk is racism in our country, which is all a talk about disunity in the city. The world can't solve it. Has the world ever solved it in Jerusalem? That's where the greatest fighting has gone on in history. I'll come back to that. What an opportunity for us to talk about God's city right now and our witness. What an opportunity to tell people about the love that Jesus has won for us in uniting us as one people. He told us he left us here because of the love that we have for one another. That's our witness. And what an opportunity to say as we love one another, that's what the city looks like. It's what it should look like. This brotherhood is called the church. The true brotherhood. The body of Christ. The imagery here is beautiful. God's reserved for this city for you where righteousness and justice shall dwell forever in the city of God. Don't you long for it? You get the clearest enjoyment of this when you gather around the word of God in life. I want you to know that together. In this life, you get the clearest enjoyment of this when you gather together, as is described here, it literally says they come to the testimony. One day we will walk in that city forever. And no longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him. That's the end of the last book of the Bible. It's all about worship. So, here's the one thing David does to now impress upon us in closing our duty. Did you notice it? Here it is, verse 6. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they be secure who love you and security within your towers. For my brothers and companions' sake, I will say, peace be within you. For the sake of the house of the Lord, our God, I will seek your good. It's been absolutely said no city throughout history was ever more destroyed and fought over, full of more violence and bloodshed than Jerusalem, and we know that to this day. Minnesota doesn't hold a candle to Jerusalem. I'm deeply troubled by the state of things in our country. I'm deeply troubled by the unrest and the injustice. I'm deeply troubled about hypocrisy, and all of these things makes me ask a great question. Is the world's peace my greatest concern, or is Jerusalem's peace my greatest concern? That challenges us, because now it's talking about loyalties to where we belong. I'm not talking about the earthly Jerusalem. This is all symbolic to say the peace of the kingdom of God in the church. David was calling us to loyalty to this. A place of spiritual conflict. A place of fighting and battles in ways that we have not appreciated in the church. That's Satan's ultimate aim. That's Satan's ultimate goal of whatever happens in society. He has a way of bringing it to the church. And David is saying, this is your brotherhood. of all nations, black, white. This is your brotherhood. For the sake of my brethren and my companions, my heart is here. Now, that doesn't make me indifferent to the world. It makes me want to bring the world to this. Those who will repent and believe the gospel. God may bring war, cease to the ends of the earth. He can do that. I pray that God breaks war, cease to the ends of the earth, and breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two so that his name would be known. But all the causes in this life, political, schools, everything, the greatest concern in your life should be for God's kingdom and his church. And that's the calling here. Invest in that. Pray for the peace of the church. That's what's under the greatest attack. If you can have eyes to see right now, that's what's under the greatest attack. The world wants a brotherhood, here it is. Let your heart be here. Let his kingdom flourish. Maybe we have been so invested in the earthly kingdoms of the world and their successes, for that's all we talk about, that God's house has been left in ruins. God's church has always got second place throughout Israel's history. And the Lord said enough of that. Pray for the good of Zion. For that's how we're going to help the world. Pray for our love. Pray for our unity. Pray for our peace. Pray for justice and love to flourish here and then people will hear. The gospel is announced here. The greatest unjust thing that was done in history as we were murdering God's son, he cried out, I thirst. And that's how God is reconciling the world through that message. May the Lord hear our prayer and giving us another return to the house of the Lord. May our loyalties be to the Lord, his church, his kingdom, his gospel, and then we'll love our neighbor the way we should. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for a wonderful message, a text today in Psalm 122 that gives us such hope. And we understand, Lord, that we're guilty for taking these things for granted, me. So return us to Jerusalem with great joy. Let us walk into the house of the Lord and see the answer. Forgiveness of sins. A better place prepared for us. A new heavens and a new earth where righteousness shall go. We're so thankful you're going to fix all this. But if you've kept this project going, you're still saving. Let us be in Jerusalem full of great joy and happiness in the gospel. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.