In his sermon 'Maximalist Worship,' Scott Brown emphasizes the importance of prioritizing worship in the life of believers, particularly on the Lord's Day. He begins with Psalm 26:8, highlighting the love for the habitation of God's house and the place where His glory dwells. Brown refers to the regulative principle of worship, explaining that only God is qualified to organize worship, and believers must align with God's design rather than personal preferences. The sermon encourages believers to be 'maximalists' in worship, using maximum effort to prioritize and engage in worship fully. Brown discusses the value of worship for individual and family life, particularly emphasizing the role of parents in guiding their children to experience the fullness of worship. He outlines ten words that describe God's intentions for worship, such as joy, nearness, beauty, and mercy, illustrating how worship is designed for the delight and spiritual growth of God's people. The sermon warns against minimizing worship, citing biblical examples of consequences for half-hearted worship. Brown calls for believers to engage actively and energetically in worship, ensuring it is a central part of their lives and the lives of their families.

Open your Bibles to Psalm 26 and find verse eight, Psalm 26. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, holy, sweeter than honey word of God. Psalm 26 verse 8, Lord, I have loved the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells Let's pray Father you have brought us into this place today that you Would find a way into our hearts into our minds into our whole lives that you would come and refresh us, you would teach us, that you would surround us with songs of deliverance and every good thing. We're so thankful to be here. I pray that you would open up your word to all of our hearts today through these words.

Amen. Please be seated. So we're continuing our series on the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and I want to continue to talk about the centrality of worship in the life of the believer on the Lord's Day and of course opening up with Psalm 26 verse 8, Lord I have loved the habitation of your house. The last time I spoke about this matter of the church and the worship of God, it was about what's called the regulative principle that only God is qualified to organize and order the worship of the people of God. And we talked about this idea that when you come into the church, often your wish dream for the church has to die, and God's dream for the church must live.

And that really speaks to the regulative principle of worship. But today, I want to talk about how we engage the worship of God, how important it is to us, how critical it is that we prioritize it, that we anticipate it before it happens, to be prepared for it. And if we have children to take serious measures to help our children experience the worship of God the way that God intended it, that it would have the force of impact that God has designed for worship. Now I believe that the most important place you take your family is to the church, to a local church. And that the ministry of the local church is designed by God to saturate your family with the greatness of God and the goodness of God, the whole counsel of God to save the souls of those who are saved and to grow their love for the Lord.

And so, you know, if you have children, you're at a very pivotal time in your life where it's critical that you power up and expose your children to the multiple facets of the goodness of God through the worship of God. Now when I planned this service, I planned to call it the family that worships together. And I didn't realize that this would be Father's Day. I didn't realize that I'd be laying heavy on Father's on Father's Day. Well, maybe it won't be so heavy, but I know it'll be at least a helpful exhortation.

So there are two parts to what I want to say I'll tell you up front First of all, I I want to describe The value and the beauty of the worship of God. I'll spend about half our time on that subject And then I also want to challenge you to take it most seriously in your life. And you have an outline in front of you. You can see the various points that I plan to make here. I want to do a work today to keep us from minimizing the value of the worship of God.

I want to say to all of us, don't be a minimalist when it comes to the gatherings of the worship of God. Be a maximalist. Now, the best use of the term minimalist is that you just remove everything that's unnecessary. That's actually a good way to think about being a minimalist. Do the things that are really necessary.

That's good minimalism, but there's a bad minimalism out there, and that's being a minimalist in the worship of God, rather than a maximalist. In other words, to use maximum effort for the things that have the most maximum importance in life. So I want us to be maximalists in this church for worship, for the worship of God. And to, well to really do what we've spoken of several times in this series on the church from Acts 2 42, that they steadfastly devoted themselves to the apostles doctrine and to fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers. They steadfastly devoted themselves.

That's maximalism in worship. And I want us to just understand the importance of the worship of God and to sort of maybe take a moment to reconsider whether you're maxing out the opportunity that exists when we come together and worship. We've have just read several passages of Scripture throughout this service. There have been several prayers offered. There have been many songs, beautiful songs, that drew us in to the things of God.

And I want particularly for parents to really understand how important it is that they prepare their children for the worship of God and to help them during the worship of God and help them after the worship of God. This is how God has designed to care for his people, to save them and then to sanctify them and really to comfort them through the troubles of the world, which there are many. So I want to begin and talk about what God is doing through the worship in the church. And the Bible shows us what God has intended. I'll just sum it up.

God has designed it for delight. That all of the instruction, all of the commands, everything, all of the songs, all of the prayers, they're designed for the delight of God's people. That's why God designed people, is that they would spend everlasting delight in heaven. And he does it by preparing them on earth and gives us dozens of pictures of how he desires to delight us. So I'm gonna give you 10 specific words that describe, that indicate what God is doing when he brings his people together.

And if you're here as a single person, if you're here as a parent, understand, particularly if you're a parent, understand that God has given you a mission to increase the delight of your children through worship. It's the place where true delight exists actually. It doesn't really exist in the silly movies and the silly songs. It exists in the exaltation of God. So I'm gonna give you 10 words.

Well, the first word should be obvious, joy. David said that worship was his joy. In Psalm 43 verse three, he says, let them bring me to your holy hill. He's talking about the worship of God. And to your tabernacle, these are code words for the gathered worship of God.

Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy. In Psalm 122, David says, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. David was really positioned for joy. He anticipated joy. In Psalm 1611, he said, in your presence is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. The second word, nearness. Nearness to God. In Psalm 145 verse 18, the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. The Lord is near.

In fact the whole concept of the tabernacle and then the temple and then the gathered people of God, all of it had to do with God is near. God is here. That's why the children of Israel around the tabernacle were collected up. Some tribes in the north, some in the south, some in the east, and some in the west, and they all pointed toward the tabernacle because God was near them. The third word, loveliness.

Loveliness. Now, even the pagan prophet, Balaam, speaks of the goodness of the presence of God and the loveliness of it. In Numbers 24, Balaam at God's bidding praises God. He says, how lovely are your tents, oh Jacob. Your dwellings, oh Israel, like valleys that stretch out, like gardens by the riverside, like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters.

All these beautiful things, all these lovely things that your eyes love to look at. He says, he shall pour water from his buckets and his seed shall be in many waters." Hey, you know, when you came today, from the very beginning of the service, hey, the pastors here were trying to pour buckets of water from the very first prayer to the very first song to the prayers of the saints in the gathered we've been trying to pour buckets on this congregation And david thought it was lovely Fourth beauty beauty first chronicle 16 23 to 31 Sing to the Lord all the earth proclaim The good news of his salvation from day to day declare his glory among the nations His wonders among all the peoples for the Lord is great and greatly to be praised he is also to be feared above the gods. And then in a few verses later, he says, bring an offering and come before him. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. You know, it's a beautiful thing when the people of God recognize the beauty of holiness, the beauty that God has laid upon them by imputing his righteousness to them and making them holy.

We come together as a holy people. I mean we know how poor we are in so many ways, but God when he brings his people together, he brings his holy people together and they worship together in the beauty of holiness. The next word, multitudes of mercies, mercy. For David the coming into the worship of God was an experience of mercy. Psalm 5, 7, but as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercies.

Have you done that today? Have you come into the house With a sense of the multitude of God's mercies toward you Says I will worship toward your holy temple the six-word satisfaction Satisfaction David speaks about the satisfaction that he received in his soul in the worship of God in Psalm 36, verse seven. How precious is your loving kindness, O God. Therefore, the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings. I love that phrase.

I can't help but repeat it. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house. You know, God is designed to bring his people together, not for inventions and jokes and entertainments, but actually the fullness of his house, to fill his house with the words of God. And when we come together, there's such an opportunity to drink it in. The seventh word, comfort.

The seventh word is comfort. Psalm 84, someday I'll have the opportunity to preach on this psalm. I've wanted to preach on it for many years. How lovely is your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord.

My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home." I love that part. And the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young. Even your altars, O Lord. I take that literally.

God meant the worship of God for you to bring your young. Lay your young, they might go to sleep, but bring your young into the nest. He says they will still be praising you. Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. He's talking about making the pilgrimage to the worship of God.

His heart is set on pilgrimage. He's set his heart to be drawn in to the worship of God. And then he says, for a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield.

The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. Oh Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you. This is what God has designed for worship. The next word, the eighth word, pleasure.

Pleasure. In your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. The ninth word, consolation. Consolation in the face of threatening situations. Over and over again, we find that it's the worship of God that drove the fear out of David's soul.

It just drove it out. It's so important that we have moments like that in our lives when we're often beset with fear. There's got to be something to drive it out. What will drive it out? The worship of God drives it out.

Psalm 27, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall be I be afraid and then he talks about the wicked coming against me to eat up his flesh and then he says one thing have I desired of the Lord that will I see that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." And then He says, for in the time of trouble, He shall hide me in His pavilion. In the secret place of His tabernacle, He shall hide me. Has that ever happened to you? You just knew that God was hiding you because of the worship that you were engaged in.

That you lived in a bubble, it was God's bubble. That's the best kind of bubble to live in. The 10th word, loving kindness. Loving kindness. I'm trying to illustrate the value and the goodness of the worship of God.

I'm trying to say, don't you see how important this is? Don't you see how helpful this can be? You know, exercise energy to engage in every element of the worship of God with all of your heart. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to give you reasons.

The tenth, loving kindness. Psalm 36 verse 7, how precious is your loving kindness, O God. Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings. For with you is a fountain of light, of life. In your light we see light.

Oh, continue your loving kindness to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright in heart." So the worship of God is a very important thing for the soul of man. If you just read what the Bible says about worship, why would you want to minimize it in any way? What it does to you. And it's the most important thing that happens in the world. Nations come and go.

Sometimes they come and go fast, but the worship of God doesn't go away. And it's so critical that we understand this. You know, in 2 Chronicles 6, Solomon describes the worship in the temple and it's very interesting because there are so many different life scenarios that Solomon prays about that happen in the temple and you know all of bringing all of our thoughts, all of our sins, all of our questions. And in his prayer, he gives these different things that happen in your life. If anyone sins against his neighbor, or if anyone is defeated by an enemy, or when the heavens are shut up and there's no rain because you've sinned, or when there's famine in the land, or pestilence, or blight, or when your people go out to battle against their enemies or when people sin against you all these are certain situations that you that you have as burdens on your shoulders when you go into the worship of God and what what Solomon is praying is he's saying, when any of these things happen, you're in the household of God, then God hear from heaven and act.

Because every situation in your life is meant to be brought before God in the worship of God, so that he might recalibrate your soul. Now, even though God has designed his worship for such wonderful purposes. Normal Christians often catch themselves worshiping God casually, Heartlessly, zoning out before, during, and after worship. Being unprepared for worship. Engaging in mindless worship.

By the way, that happens to everyone. It's easy for our minds to drift. You know, there are all kinds of things written, particularly by the Puritans, about drifting in worship, about forgetting where you really are. We all do that. Experiencing emotionless worship, having little thought about what we're doing.

That happens to all of us. So My intention today is to try to move us ahead a few steps in our understanding of worship and how we ought to prioritize it. If you're following me in the outline, I didn't want to fail to bring up the danger of minimizing the worship of God. It's dangerous to minimize the worship of God. There actually are disastrous consequences for those who minimize or use inventions in worship.

God actually destroys nations for inventions in worship. Just read your Old Testament, it happens all the time. The Babylonian captivity was God's punishment for the Jews by neglecting the Sabbath. They neglected the Sabbath for 490 years. And God sent them to Babylon.

And then worship was restored after 70 years of captivity. You have the sad story of Nadab and Abihu. It teaches us that the worship of God is so important, that God has killed people for inventions in worship, for creating an unbiblical format of worship. You have the story of Eli and Hophni and Phineas which teaches us, and this is so terrifying. God demolished an entire family for all the following generations because of their inventions in worship.

And we're never in greater danger than when we are drinking in the ways of the Gentiles and forgetting the importance of the worship of God. It's so important. And in Isaiah chapter one, we learn that God has actually finally grew weary of heartless worship. He says I've had enough of your burnt offerings. I do not delight in the blood of bulls.

In other words, they were doing the right things, they were sacrificing, their worship was pretty much regulated by God, but it was heartless. And he says, I'm weary of burying them. So it's dangerous. In Malachi chapter one, verses six to 14, we find God's displeasure in half-hearted worship. You should read this chapter.

But they were bringing their downgraded sacrifices, not their best sacrifice. They hadn't energetically prepared themselves with the very best sacrifice. They were taking it casually. And so he says, you offer your blind. He says, you wouldn't even give this to your governor why are you giving it to me he said should I accept this from your hand he says he says you come into the worship but you say my how tiresome it is oh it's just a big hassle.

It's just a big, you know, I'll get there when I can get there. My how tiresome it is. So it's actually very dangerous to minimize the worship of God. But the chief end of man is what? It's to glorify God and Enjoy him forever.

That's the chief end of man. It's the enjoyment of God that glorifies God. And frankly, the only thing that really matters in the world is that God's glory is seen and enjoyed. God is looking for his children to enjoy the bounty of his name. That he might fill them with everlasting joy.

So that's the purpose, purpose of it all. Now I wanna talk about the worship of God being for the whole family. In Deuteronomy 31, 11 through 13, it's just a representative passage of scripture that speaks of this, that you find the whole family involved in the worship of God. And I think it's very critical that we follow the biblical pattern. The biblical pattern is that All the generations are involved in the worship of God.

That's how it is in the Bible. It doesn't happen any other way in the Bible when God's people are gathered together for worship. Deuteronomy 31, 11. When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing, gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law, that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess. So the children are there, hey, there are a lot of children here this morning as well, I don't want to neglect them.

They shouldn't be neglected in the worship of God. They should be helped into the tabernacle of the Most High. And you know, God loves to gather families together for worship, And if you don't have a family, he gives you a big family, the big family of the church. And You know, there's a very interesting note, notation in Psalm 22, it's the great messianic Psalm about Christ's crucifixion where that phrase, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But when you get to verse 27 in Psalm 22, The whole purpose of it is stated, that all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.

This is God's intention in bringing families together. So I wanna give you some principles for engaging the worship of God. And these are, I think, transferable if you have a family or not. But the first is don't be a minimalist when it comes to engaging your family in the worship of God. Don't be a minimalist in the bad sense of the term minimalism.

Be a maximalist. Do everything you can to maximize the force of the moment. The church, The worship of God offers dozens of opportunities to orient your family around the knowledge of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. In bucket loads, one bucket after another, from the beginning of the service till the end. And hey, the earlier you get going on this with your children, the better off you are.

Children learn by degrees like all of us. We all learn by degrees. We all are very slow in our learning. Children are like that. Everybody has stages.

Don't despise the stages. Don't worry about the stages. This is God the way God designed it. He desired to give his people one step at a time, the slow drip method of instruction. Hey, give your children 10, 000 reasons to believe that God is good, through the songs, through the prayers.

Help them acquire the wisdom from the words that are spoken, from the songs that are sung. And do it through, God gave the local church for this purpose, that God would gather all of his people together and concentrate their attention on him. You know, often we hear sermons, things like that, we just kind of go our way. You know, I was listening to a speaker at a homeschool conference just this last week, online, talking about taking time to meditate, like after reading a book or after reading a passage of scripture, or having a lesson. In other words, this person was saying, don't just move on, encourage your children to meditate on it.

And encourage them to meditate on it and tell somebody about it. I thought that was really helpful. Because we process so much content. We hear sermons, we've got earbuds, pounding all kinds of things into our brains, and we don't stop and meditate on them enough, I'm just, I know that's true of me, and I know it's true of all of us. We hear more than we meditate on.

It's important to really savor it, And I think you can do that with the worship of God. Before, do it before, do it during, and do it after. Savor it, meditate on it, and talk about it like that. Make it a wonderful adventure. You know, Take them, intentionally take them into the delights of hearing and singing and praying and Be a great tour guide.

God makes parents tour guides. Be a wonderful, you've probably had good and bad tour guides maybe as you've gone through museums or whatever. There are good ones and there are bad ones. Be a great tour guide. Be a great tour guide.

You know, several weeks ago, Kelly Jennings and I were in a restaurant and Kelly asked the waiter if we could pray for him. He said, just a minute, I'll be back. I'm gonna go write some things down. And he came back with this list of things he wanted us to pray for. And so he came back to the table and we asked him about the list and he said, I wanna be the best waiter in the world.

Wow, I thought that was great. He wanted to be faithful in what God put in his hands. Well, that's true of every parent too. Be the greatest tour guide you can be. I'm here to say, hey, if you need to ratchet it up, ratchet it up.

Be better next week than you were this week. Be a better tour guide for everlasting joy. Be a better tour guide through the worship of God than you were last week and the week before. Crank it up, you know, excel still more. That's what Paul said to the church, excel still more.

I mean, this is the body of Christ. This is the city of the living God. This is the flock of God. This is the pillar and ground of the truth. This is the bride of Christ.

This is the family of God. This is so important. It's appropriate, it's appropriate to be a great tour guide in the church for your children. It's so easy to flip into kind of a humdrum, robotic, cruise control disposition of your local church. Parents, don't you dare do that.

Don't you dare do that to the Church of Jesus Christ for the sake of the souls of your children. Don't be on cruise control. If you're on cruise control, get it off of cruise control. Press the gas to the metal. Happy Father's Day.

You know, what kind of guide have you been to your children in this corneacopia of blessing that gets poured out bucket full by bucket full in the local church. It's a great gift. It's a great gift to have a church where they sing and where they pray. It's a tremendous gift and you don't wanna miss it. Immerse your children in the culture of the church.

And what I mean by that is, not the corruptions of the culture of the church, but the biblical coordinates of the culture of the church. And it's a culture of thanksgiving and praise. Isn't that what we do? Isn't that what we do from the minute we walk in the door? We are giving thanks to God.

The guy who prays right at the beginning, he's giving thanks to God, and then we sing a song of praise. This is a culture of thanksgiving and praise. That's why David said, happy are those who dwell in your house. I mean, hey, look, you shouldn't just take your children to church. You should be a great tour guide for everlasting joy.

It is a culture of singing, you know. In the church you teach your children how to sing. By the way, the apostle Paul taught two churches how to sing in Ephesians and Colossians. And the Bible makes it clear that God wants to draw your family into the singing of the praises of God. Help them to love it.

Help them to love the singing. What will you do to help them to love the singing? Before the singing, during the singing, and after the singing. And don't let them off the hook. Don't let them sit there in their badness and not sing.

Don't let them just be their pitiful old selves. Call them up, call them higher, call them to better things. It's a culture shaped by preaching. You know, Teach your children to dial into the preaching as best you can. Everybody knows when they're really, really little, it's harder.

That's just the way it is. God designed it that way. Do everything you can to make it the best you can, even for the littlest kid. They can hear words. They can hear words.

Sometimes it's just one word that they can understand. But they understand a lot more than they can say. You understand? Do you realize that? Children understand more words than they can say.

They understand more of what you say than you think they do when they're really little. Don't be a minimalist. When Deborah and I were raising our kids, we really wanted to awaken the respect of our children toward the preacher. And we wanted them to be as much as they could to look at the preacher and to respect the person who is talking. But God, He shapes His church through the preaching.

It's one of the most pivotal things that happens in the church. And helping your children to dial into the preaching rather than to tune out is really critical. And it's a lot of work when they're really little. But you should do the work. You should do the work.

I'm here to testify, Debra and I, we worked hard at it when our kids were growing up. You can work hard at it, but you can't just sit there on cruise control. You know, Make it your goal to increase their joy in the word of God. That they would say like Jeremiah, your word was to me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. Or like David when he said, your testimonies were my delight, that they are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

You know, you have a responsibility as parents to lay out the honey. It's a land of milk and honey in the church. And they ought to be able to taste it. Taste and see that the Lord is good. That's why Jesus said, take heed how you're here.

How your children hear will determine the eternal state of their souls. We can talk a lot about what Jesus meant when he said, take heed how you hear. Prepare them before the preaching, help them during the preaching, and review it after the preaching. That's my advice to this church. Have an immersive experience.

Be a maximalist when it comes to worship, not a minimalist. I don't think you'll regret it. The church really is the most critical discipleship tool because it's all focused on the word of God. And you can make much more out of the education of your children by maximizing the effect of what happens in a local church. You know, in our church, we focus everything on the preaching, on the worship of God.

You know, on Monday morning we meet with the men and we talk about what we're gonna preach on. Then I send out, or whoever's preaching sends out an email, they're gonna tell you what we're gonna preach on on Sunday. You just got tipped off for what's gonna happen. Here's my encouragement, read that passage of scripture to your children, explain it to them before the service. Sometime during the week, we even send out the songs.

They don't know the songs, teach them the songs so that they can sing. By the way, we send those songs out, not just to take up data bits or paper. We send them out because they could be useful to people, particularly families who are teaching their kids how to sing. So you can really maximize their joy in the singing by teaching them those songs. That's why we send them out in the email.

It's a culture of fellowship. You know, build anticipation for the joys of fellowship. I mean, in the church you have the rich, the poor, the wise, the foolish, the young, the old. You got grandmothers and babies. They're all here.

And it's such a wonderful thing to be involved in an intergenerational fellowship. You know, help your children just see how good that is. You have spiritual brothers and sisters. You know, we could talk a lot about how to have little children in the service. That's the hardest part.

It's absolutely the hardest part. And the parents feel very threatened and inadequate and discouraged when their children act up at church. Well, let me just give you a few thoughts about that. It's always been that way. Parents have always had to deal, well, Except for the last 150 years, everybody in the church had their children with them, okay?

This is a new invention. Kicking children out of the services is a new invention. So, But people, you know, parents have always had to deal with crying babies. You know what? It's normal.

I just want to take the pressure off. If you have to take your child out, don't feel bad, don't feel guilty, don't feel like you're a bad parent. You know, every parent is going to have to deal with that at some level. I mean you want to do everything you can to train them out of that kind of thing and there are things that you can do. Come up and talk to Deborah and I, I think we can talk to you about different things that you can do but It's better to have them in and take them out for a few moments, but you shouldn't feel guilty about it.

After all, they are children. This is what children do. Okay, The other thing, Deborah reminded me of this the other day, there's actually something that she thinks happens when parents bring their children to the worship of God, the devil hates it. The devil flat out hates it. And so he's gonna tempt your children and he's gonna tempt you to make it a really bad experience So that you're not you're not relaxed and you're not you know wisely dealing with it and that child is acting up and sinning and so you have to take them out.

What are you gonna do? So I do believe that the devil does hate the worship of God enough, not only just to make adults bored, but to make children act up in front of God and everybody and so you take them out. But don't, you know, don't feel too bad about that. That's the way it's always been. There are a lot of things you can do.

You know, role playing, these kind of situations beforehand is a really helpful way to deal with it. Helping your children sit still in family worship is one of the most powerful things you can do to mitigate problems in the church. When we were raising our kids, we had several mantras. Look at the speaker, sit still, listen to the speaker, sing wholeheartedly, show respect for the other worshipers, don't turn around and don't make faces at other people, and don't play. That's what we told our kids.

So don't underestimate what God has given in a local church. Be Great tour guides. Don't be dull tour guides. Be thoughtful, energetic tour guides. Come and get your children ready to get buckets of living water when they come into the church.

And one more thing, one more thing. When the rain starts to fall really hard on your children in years to come, when the winds blow and the storms of life break on their house, be sure that their house is built on the rock. Be sure that they have the words of God embedded in their hearts. Be sure that they have something to hold them. Give them 10, 000 reasons to be held in the arms of God.

And that's why we do what we do in this church. That's why we read so much scripture. That's why we pray. That's why we preach. That's why we do everything we do here, is to pour one bucket of water after another.

And all these things are fortifying. None of us remember everything that we've heard in church services, but it's the way that God fortifies us one drip at a time. We may not remember it, but we will be fortified by it in our souls as we pass by these things. So don't miss a second of the worship of God. And by the way, don't be late for the worship of God.

If you're chronically late for worship, if you're chronically late for the worship of God, Ask yourself why. Why is that? It doesn't take too much to change a late pattern in your life. Now if you're, if you have it, if you just need to have a more orderly, proactive schedule, then you should fix that. But I hope you don't think that it's okay to be late because you need less of the worship of God.

You need fewer buckets poured on you because if you're late you're gonna hear fewer prayers, if you're late you're gonna hear you're gonna sing fewer songs, and if you're late you're gonna hear less scripture. Do you need less? Do you need less or do you need more? I want to encourage you to get as much as you possibly can and order your life in such a way that you don't miss a lick of the worship of God in the church. Well don't be a minimalist, be a maximalist in the worship of God for yourself and for every generation that's here.

David loved being in the house of God. Lord, I have loved the habitation of your house, the place where your glory dwells. In that same chapter, He said, my foot stands in an even place. In the congregations, I bless the Lord. He said, happy are those who dwell in your house.

They will still be praising you. Would you pray with me? Lord, you are forming up a congregation to proclaim the greatness of your name. I pray that you would make us a congregation that's full of the fullness of your house. That we would ever be praising you, that we would be instructed, that we would come together and make the most out of this thing called the worship.

And that you would, in this little local church, that you would make us a people who have so loved the habitation of your house That we couldn't be late and that our whole hearts were engaged in this marvelous thing that you designed for joy. Amen.