Household Worship - Part 4 Prayer

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Lesson: Household Worship - Part 4 Prayer Date: Jan. 5, 2025 Teacher: Pastor Conley Owens

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Household Worship - Part 5 Singing

Household Worship - Part 5 Singing

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You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning. I pray that you would bless our time. Studying what your word says about prayer,
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I ask that you would guide us in this great privilege of coming before the throne of grace.
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In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Here, Sarah, you can have this one. I assume, do we still have more handouts?
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Whoever was handing out handouts, cares? No, we're out? Okay, just spread them around and share.
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If you are on, yeah, if anybody doesn't have one, we can figure out how to work this out here.
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Okay, I can also start printing a couple more. Maybe that's needed. We had way too many last time, so I printed less.
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Shouldn't have done that. Shoulda just trusted God, you know? That's what
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I was always told as a kid growing up in a Pentecostal church. You're like, if you don't put out this many seats, it means you're not trusting
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God enough to bring that many people. All right, some of these are stapled backwards.
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We're starting on the side that says household prayer. Okay, all right.
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Let me go over just something in our confession and then something in the directory of family worship.
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Prayer with thanksgiving, being one part of natural worship, is by God required of all men, but that it may be accepted, it is to be made in the name of the
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Son, by the help of the Spirit, according to his will, with understanding, reverence, humility, fervency, faith, love, and perseverance, and when with others, in a known tongue.
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We'll be coming back to that a number of times today, but perhaps the most interesting thing here is that it is called an act of natural worship.
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Most worship regulated by God is something that he must command in order for it to be right.
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It would not be right for us to worship him through singing unless he told us it was right for us to worship him through singing.
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We can't just make up ceremonies like the Lord's Supper. That's not something we're permitted to do, right?
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He gives that to us and then we do it, right? We don't make up things like baptism or come up with our own ceremonies, right?
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God gives those things to us and because he gives those to us, it's right to do. Prayer is something natural.
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Prayer, if God has made man so that he is aware that there is a God, right? Romans 1,
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Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. Man knows that there is a God, then of course he must call out to him. Of course he must beseech him.
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So prayer is an element of natural worship. From the directory of family worship, the ordinary duties comprehended under the exercise of piety which should be in families when they are convened to that effect are these first prayer and praises with the special reference as well to the public condition of the
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Kirk of God, Kirk means church, in this kingdom as to the present case of the family and every member thereof.
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All right, so we're not gonna talk about just prayer in general. Tim taught on prayer a few weeks ago.
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I'm not gonna be covering the six different petitions in the Lord's Prayer or anything like that. We're going to just make a bunch of applications to family worship in particular and ask ourselves questions about how prayer ought to be conducted in family worship.
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First question we have to answer is who should pray? Who should pray? First of all, men are particularly called to pray in their families.
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First Timothy 2 .8, I desire that in every place men should pray, lifting up holy hands without quarreling or anger.
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Remember, this is right before women are addressed and their duty is explained as well. The idea is that men are particularly tasked to pray.
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We see that pattern generally in scripture. Hebrews 7 .7 is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.
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We tend to think of the terms inferior and superior only in terms of value, but these are things that frequently refer to authority.
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If you talk about your superiors and you're in the army, you're talking about people who are above you in authority.
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And so it is the case that one who is put in charge of others ought to be praying on their behalf, yes.
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Yeah, so this is kind of an open question for me to what degree this is a command in prayer.
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You do see it a number of times throughout the Psalms where it talks about lifting holy hands in prayer. People, for some reason, associate it with singing.
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Bible never really talks about it with singing. That's in the evangelical churches. People usually aren't raising their hands when they pray, but a lot of times they are raising their hands when they sing.
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But yeah, scripture associates that with prayer. It is a kind of, yeah, appeal to the mercy of God, like a gesture appealing to his mercy.
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So I think there may be something there, but that remains kind of an open question for me. Yeah, I have a document shared with Tim where I have lists for his podcast to explore, a list of episode suggestions.
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This is one of them on there, so I'm gonna just throw that on him. All right, so yeah, men are particularly depraved.
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Wives, and this would apply, and remember, households can be much more complex than our households today tend to be, right?
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When you read older books on household worship, you know, it's speaking of the servants, it's speaking of long -term people who are staying with you because they don't have as many hotels, et cetera.
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Like, this is how a lot of things are working. There's a lot of sojourning that's happening at the house. There's servants, you know, nowadays, our servants are refrigerators and washing machines, and they do not join in family worship, right?
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So anyway, so wives, and then more generally, just anyone with a credible profession ought to pray.
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And here I'm speaking of wife as one who, I'm presuming, does have a credible profession, right? This is not a, this, of course, is not something that applies to all wives, but we'll get there in a second.
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1 Peter 3, 7, likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
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Now, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, what this verse is about, when it says your prayers may not be hindered.
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I think the natural tendency for us to read is that you, husbands, your prayers not be hindered.
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But a very common interpretation of this is referring to the husband and wife together, not to the husbands collectively that Paul is referring to, but to husband and wife, your prayer, your and her prayers together not be hindered.
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Like, why is there a need for unity? There's a need for unity in order that united prayers be able to happen and be effective.
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Okay, that's why there's a need for unity. It's something very natural, it's not just, oh, if you're not united, then
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God will be angry at you and not hear your prayers. No, it's true, the prayers of a righteous man have great power as they're working, and so there is a good to prayer that happens just in being, in pursuing righteousness.
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But the concern here is not that you be, you know, a righteous man such that God hears your prayers, but that you be united so that your prayers together have that power.
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Calvin says, Peter indeed addresses the husband and the wife when he bids them to be at peace with one another so that they might be, might with one mind pray to God.
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And like I said, this is a very common interpretation of this passage going back a long time. You see
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Cornelius fear God with his whole household. Remember, fearing God refers to worshipful.
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Fear. Karis, would you be able to go check the printer and see if more things are printed, thanks.
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All right. Yeah, Cornelius fears God with his whole household.
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A devout man who feared God with his whole household gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God.
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All right, so it's speaking of him praying, but it's speaking of him fearing God with his household.
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What does that mean unless they are engaged in the formal acts of fear along with him? All right, children.
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And here I'm speaking of small children, right, because I'm speaking of them as those without a credible profession.
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However, you know, children can have credible professions. Wives, children here being used as a,
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I don't know, prototypical, I suppose. But yeah, Lord willing, your children do have credible professions, but they should pray.
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First of all, prayer is an element of natural worship. Psalm 65, 12, oh you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come.
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Okay, all flesh ought to go to God in prayer. Even children ought to pray to God.
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This might seem like something that's obvious to you, but keep in mind, a lot of Baptists believe that it would be wrong to teach your children to pray, right, because if they do not have
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Christ as their, if you aren't assuming their regeneration, then you aren't, then they don't necessarily have
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Christ as their mediator, and then their prayers are not heard, and so why would you teach them to pray?
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But it's real important to note that prayer is an element of natural worship, all people, regardless of whether, now, in order for your prayers to be heard,
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Christ must be your mediator, but all people are called to pray to God. Yes?
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I would say that they ought to. Yeah, right. Now, they shouldn't do so mockingly or anything, but I believe that, yeah,
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I believe it would be right to teach them to pray, yes. Yes, yeah, together, yes.
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Note also that, oh, what Jesus says. Now, Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him,
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Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. Okay, so this is the task of the discipler, right?
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Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, John teaches his disciples to pray. If you have been put in spiritual charge of a people, like children, you are to teach them to pray.
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This is part of the duty of one who is put in authority over others in that way, is to teach them to pray.
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Jesus encourages the little children to come to him, but Jesus said, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.
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Note that while Matthew says children, Luke says infants, the Greek, he uses the Greek word brethos, which means infants.
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Okay, so these are, and if we are to take some application from letting the children come to him, what would it be other than they are to be able to come to him in prayer?
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Sorry, was that another question? I think it's right for, yeah,
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I think it's right for even unbelievers to pray. I mean, they ought to believe, right? And their prayers will not be heard, right?
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Because if you do not have Christ as a mediator, if you do not, right, it has to be made according to his will, with understanding, reverence, humility, fervency, faith, love, perseverance.
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Like these are things that prevent their prayers from being heard, but this is still a command. So the same way, right, all men are commanded not to murder, right, it is good for someone not to murder.
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Their obedience does not please God, right? Hebrews 11, six says that without faith, it is impossible to please
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God, for the one who comes to him must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who seek him. So it is good for someone not to murder.
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That does not mean it pleases God. That does not mean it's an acceptable good work that, you know, reaches up to him and he, you know, finds it pleasing in his sight.
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So that distinction between duty and God accepting it as pleasing are distinct.
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Yes? Oh, sure, yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah. Right, and so like you see in the larger congregation, right, there's, yeah, typically there's one person praying on behalf of everyone, but sometimes, you know, we are praying with ourselves, et cetera.
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And so, yeah, I think this is something that there's freedom to figure out how it is, but it's not something that should be withheld as though you ought not to pray, you're not supposed to pray.
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When you go to your rooms, don't pray, you know, et cetera. Right. Yeah, so what
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I do in my family, and like I said, this is something that, you know, there's freedom as needed.
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But yeah, my family, I have everyone pray in the morning, and then just I pray in the afternoon.
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Or in the evening, I mean. Okay. Yes.
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Yes, yeah. So the Bible speaks of God as Father in multiple senses.
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Right. Right. Well, I would hope in as much as they trust in Jesus Christ that he is.
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It depends on which one you're talking about. You know, those who can't speak, I doubt that they understand. Yeah.
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Well, if he is willing to submit in Christian worship, yeah. I mean, I imagine if he's really a
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Muslim, he's not going to be. Like, that should be, I would expect that to be odious to him. Yeah.
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Right. No, no, not teaching them that God is their
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Father in a salvific sense. But yeah, the Bible uses the word
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Father in multiple ways. Speak of God. So when I'm speaking to my kids, I'm encouraging them to trust in Christ and to believe in him and as God, in God as their
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Father. And so those go hand in hand. I don't have a way of divorcing them until like, wait until I discern that God is really your
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Father, and then I will. You know, I don't think that's the way to approach it. Yes. Right, right.
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Yeah, now I understand in the Lord's Prayer, when we're calling out to him as Father, we're speaking of ourselves, particularly as his children that he cares for.
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But there is a way that that is true of all creation, that he cares for all of creation, right?
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He is good to all of them. That's why we are to love our enemies. I understand that you could miscommunicate and just guarantee that, oh, everyone who says some prayer has
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God as their Father salvificly, and is not of their father, the devil, or whatever, but no,
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I think that as we encourage children to trust in Christ, we should be encouraging them to pray to God as Father.
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Like, if they cannot pray the Lord's Prayer, that seems like a significant problem.
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And I would add that those who object to children praying almost always have no qualms with children singing, but is there really a material difference in concern?
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Ephesians 5, 19, addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.
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When you sing, you're supposed to be making melody to the Lord. When kids sing, and they're singing to God, all the same problems exist.
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Well, if this is a very young child who has not been converted yet, then are their songs accepted, et cetera, right?
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All these questions exist. But, oh,
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I mean, and they have answers, too. The answers, yeah, apart from Christ being mediator, things are not accepted.
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But yeah, if we would teach children to sing, we should teach them to pray. I don't see how you could do one and not the other.
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Sorry, did you have a follow -up there? No, okay. All right, let's see.
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All right, yeah, and so speaking of the Muslim, because I actually wrote down some things about this on my notes, about Muslims praying.
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I believe that should be a condition of household membership. You know, when we have the interns, those who go through the intern housing program, one of the questions is, they can fill it out if they're not a
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Christian, but they have to agree, there's check boxes where they have to agree that they will not pray to any other God, they will not worship any other
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God while they're in the program, and they will be part of family worship, et cetera. That is the stated requirement.
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Yeah, if I had a Muslim in my house, and he asked me if he could go, like, you know, and his prayer hour came, and he asked me where he could go to pray,
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I would tell him, you can't do that here. Like, I would not permit that. There was one time, there was a homeless lady that was on this,
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I guess here on Lakewood Drive, who was lost. I gave her a room for a couple of days.
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She just kind of, just was very tired, just basically didn't wake up for two days, but eventually, when
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I spoke to her, I said, you know, we'll let you stay here for some short while, but you'd have to agree not to.
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She was clearly disturbed, and had lots of weird religious ideas. She had these three or four goddesses she prayed to, or whatever that she was talking about.
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I said, you have to agree, you will not do that. You won't pray to any false gods while you're in this home, and she would not agree to that, and so I told her, okay, then
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I'll give you a ride to wherever you want. Yeah, I mean, sad, she's back on the street, but yeah, this is,
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I think this should be a requirement that a head of household places on household members. Joshua 24, 15 says, and if it is evil in your eyes to serve the
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Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your father served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the
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Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And then consider also how the
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Sabbath applies to a household. Exodus 20, 10.
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But the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.
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So the commands to worship are not just for an individual to uphold, but for him to apply to his household as well.
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All right, any questions on that? Yeah, yeah, or saints or angels, yeah.
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Yeah, it does, and those prayers are not good, and I would not want them leading in prayer.
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Okay, there's a difference between encouraging them to pray along and then giving them a position where they are vocally praying and leading, and others are supposed to pray along with them.
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Right, there's a distinction between those two things. So I would not, yeah, I wouldn't choose to let them vocally lead everyone else in prayer.
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Oh yeah, that's different, because what they're doing at that point is they're praying to Allah, right, with their little prayer rug and everything, yeah.
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Okay, right, I mean, yeah, I wouldn't, I get that some people look at similarities between Allah and God and say that they're the same, but they clearly aren't.
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I do think Catholics and Roman Catholics in looking at Scripture are, yeah,
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I think they're wrongly praying to the true God. I think that's different than, and same with the Jews in the
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New Testament, right. They're wrongly seeking the true God, right, right, yeah.
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Yeah, so maybe that was a clarification that's needed. Yeah, I would not have, someone who has a heretical faith,
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I would not encourage them to pray out loud in a way where, in a group setting where others would be inclined to be praying along with them, right.
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But rather, they should be encouraged to pray to the true God, yes. Yeah, I mean, that's something else where I wouldn't be,
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I wouldn't, I would encourage them to pray to God. I would not encourage them to, I would not have them vocally lead others in prayer or pray, yeah, vocally in a setting where others would be praying with them, yes.
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Yeah, there's two things here. Okay, so one is, one is whether or not they're saved.
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You know, if they are to, yeah, if they're praying, and you're talking about praying vocally, right.
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If they're praying vocally and they have heretical views they have made it completely evident that they are not saved, right.
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Whereas what we're talking about typically with others whose states of conversion are unknown, that's a different situation.
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So I think if you're trying to figure out well what's the distinction between like having, like encouraging children to pray out loud in a group setting versus, yeah, adults.
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I think that's the thing we're talking about. Known conversions in status versus unknown.
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Okay. Yeah, so a lot of things to think through there.
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I do think that heads of households really ought to consider their responsibility over their household to make it a household that serves
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God. They should not see themselves as just, I don't know, like an administrator of a building with limited authority or whatever, right.
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Okay. Yeah, providence should guide the subject matter of household prayers.
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Now when I say providence, I mean specifically the times and places that God has placed you. Events also, but specifically the times and place that God has placed you.
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From the Directory of Family Worship it says we should pray with a special reference as well to the public condition of the Kirk of God and this kingdom as to the present case of the family and every member thereof.
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Okay, so what is it saying? It's saying we should pray for the church of God and the kingdom, right, and the nation that you're in as well as your family and all the members of the family.
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Okay, so it's the kingdom that you're in, the church that you're in, specifically, and the whole global church as well.
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And then specifically your family. God has placed each person according to his will.
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Acts 17, 26 says, and he made from one man every nation in mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods in the boundaries of their dwelling places.
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You see in Jeremiah 29, seven, people who are in Babylon are to seek the welfare of the city and pray to the
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Lord on his behalf. You know, if we find ourselves sojourners here in a sort of foreign land, but we are part of it, we still should be praying on his behalf.
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We should pray for rulers, 1 Timothy 2, one through two. First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
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We should pray for our church or the church at large. Ephesians 6, 18, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.
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Colossians 4, two through three, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with all thanksgiving.
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At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which
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I am in prison. Now, recall, both with Ephesians and Colossians, but more specifically with Colossians, the context here is how you are supposed to behave in families, right?
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Verse 18 of chapter three, wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives. Children, obey your parents.
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Fathers, do not provoke your children. Bondservants, obey, et cetera.
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Master, verse one, masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, and then continue steadfastly in prayer.
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All right, so all these statements about households, now the way your ESV is gonna break that up there is it says further instructions that are distinct from households, but remember those paragraph breaks or chapter breaks aren't there when
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Paul is writing this. This is coming immediately after all the statements about how households are to dwell with one another.
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In addition to masters, treating your bondservants justly and fairly, what are you to do? You are to continue steadfastly in prayer.
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Yeah, given the context, I mean, this seems most appropriate to be a matter of family prayer.
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All right, and we should pray for our own family. You see in Job 1 .5, and when the days of feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and they would rise up early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all.
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For Job said, it may be that my children have sinned and cursed me, but I curse God in their hearts. Thus Job did continually.
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All right, so practically, how do you accomplish praying for all these things? One thing that we do is we have a bunch of index cards where we have the different members of the church written down on them.
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We have different prayer requests that are in line with these sorts of things, and they get distributed randomly to the kids in the morning so that we make sure we do go through these different things.
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When I pray, I'm usually praying for the family's welfare throughout the day and for our church and for the nation occasionally.
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So that's how I try to accomplish that. Any questions on what should be prayed for?
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Do you see how providence and the nature of your prayers go hand in hand? Yes. No, it's just an observation that we are not placed randomly or by chance or haphazardly, but God has put us in particular places and that comes with particular, we should read his providence with an imperative, right?
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There are particular imperatives associated with our providence. If you are in this family, you're to pray for this family, right?
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There's lots of families I don't pray for, right? I don't know. I don't pray for most nations,
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I pray for our nation, right? Now, I pray for the global church, but I pray particularly for this church and only occasionally am
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I praying for other churches, other local churches. Yeah, and that is right for me to especially be concerned about these things in prayer because given the way that God has put me in this particular time and this particular place, these are my particular duties to lift up these particular things in prayer.
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All right, some things to think about for those learning to pray.
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This is not an exhaustive list of considerations, but things
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I think that people ought to think of particularly when they're teaching children to pray. All right,
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Baptist Catechism 105. Prayers and offering up our desires to God by the assistance of the Holy Spirit for things agreeable to his will.
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In the name of Christ, believing with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgements of his mercies.
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So first of all, we should pray in the name of Christ. I have heard some say that while they would encourage, while they teach their children to pray, they do not have them pray in the name of Christ because they are not certain that Christ is their mediator.
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Once again, I don't think that, yeah, we should be so, make so much presumption.
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The only ways that prayers are accepted are in the name of Christ. I think it's right to have them plead in his name.
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All right, John 16, 23. In that day, you asked nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
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We should also pray according to God's will. This is obvious. In some sense, it's kind of one of the key things in prayer.
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This is main thing that Tim was going through when he went through the six petitions.
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And this is the confidence we have toward him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Now, the reason I have this here as a special consideration is that this is probably the last thing on a child's mind when they pray, right?
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They are thinking about what they want. They are not thinking about what God wants. And so, first of all, in telling them the kinds of things that they ought to pray for, they should be things that are according to God's will.
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But in addition, when you teach them prayer, it's good to have them elaborate on the reasons that they are praying for this thing.
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You know, I have my kids, when they pray for dear God, please help the food pantry to go well, right?
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I encourage them. Why? So that people would hear the gospel, so that people would, you know, so that you would be glorified.
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You know, add some things that shows that you are submitting to the will of God. Yeah, so teaching them to pray according to God's will in the way they express themselves, not even just the things that they are asking for, but in the way that they are expressing themselves.
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Also, we should pray clearly. First Corinthians 14, 16 through 17 says, otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say amen to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying?
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For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. Now, this is about the use of tongues in Corinth, and I grew up in a church where frequently prayers were made in an unknown tongue, because I grew up in a
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Pentecostal church, and occasionally there'd be an interpreter. Of course, you know, I have thoughts on whether or not that was a real interpretation, but this applies to many other things, right?
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If you are to pray in a way that edifies others, that has implications beyond just not doing it in a different language.
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You need to pray in a way that's understandable by others, it can be heard by others. Children really struggle with this, especially when they're saying things that they're being taught to say, and are not necessarily, it's not coming from their own heart as fluidly as it ought.
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So it is good to encourage children to be heard. You know, I bring up this verse to my kids frequently, that they speak loudly when they pray in order that it might be edifying to others.
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Keep in mind, this is not just kids that err on this. I've been in a lot of prayer groups where there'll be some very, very quiet person who just, you know, just is,
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I guess it may be embarrassed of their prayers, or maybe just very shy, and they speak too quietly, even though we're all supposed to be listening and praying along with them.
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So they, yeah, they're not praying loud enough for others to be built up, and it's the exact same problem in First Corinthians.
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It doesn't matter if you're claiming it to be a gift of the Spirit or not, it is still a problem if it can't be understood.
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All right, any questions there? All right, so given that there's 20 minutes,
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I didn't know if we'd have enough time to get to this last time. We ended up going pretty slow. Directory of Family Worship section nine has a lot of thoughts on this.
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I thought I'd just read to you and think through with you. So, so many as can conceive prayer ought to make use of that gift of God, albeit those who are rude and weaker may begin at a set form of prayer, but so they are not to be sluggish in stirring up themselves according to their daily necessities in the spirit of prayer, which is given all the children of God in some measure, to which effect they ought to be more fervent and frequent in secret prayer to God for enabling of their hearts to conceive and their tongues to express convenient desires to God for their family.
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So, yeah, even though, yeah, even though, yeah, some might need assistance in what they pray and might need a set form of prayer so that they are not having to be too creative with the way they express themselves.
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It is good for, yeah, it's good for God's people to pray. Let's see.
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For enabling of their hearts to conceive and their tongues to express convenient desires to God for their family, and in the meantime, for their greater encouragement, let these materials of prayer be meditated upon and made use of as follows.
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Let them confess to God how unworthy they are to come into his presence and how unfit to worship his majesty, and therefore earnestly ask of God the spirit of prayer.
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So they ought to, yeah, confess that they do not belong there by themselves.
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You need to ask God for both, yeah, the mediation of the son, the spirit that causes us to cry out,
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Abba, Father. They are to confess their sins and the sins of their family, accusing, judging, condemning themselves for them till they bring their souls to some measure of true humiliation.
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It's a good thing to learn to confess sin. They are to pour out their souls to God in the name of Christ by the spirit for forgiveness of sins, for grace to repent, to believe, to live soberly, righteously, and godly, that they might serve
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God with joy and delight walking before him. They are to give thanks to God for his many mercies to his people and to themselves, and especially for his love in Christ and for the light of the gospel.
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All right, so thanking for spiritual things, for religious things. They are to pray for such particular benefits, spiritual and temporal, as they stand in need of for the time, whether it be morning or evening, as anent, anent means about or regarding, as anent health or sickness, prosperity or adversity.
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So, you know, whatever the conditions of the day are, if there are particular activities that you are anticipating, then you ought to pray for those things.
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If it's the end of the day and there are things that you can especially thank God for, those are things that you should pray for as well.
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Yeah, given that you are approaching life together as a family, there are a lot of things to pray for specifically that your family is specifically encountering.
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They ought to pray for the Kirk of Christ, right, the Church of Christ in general, for all the reformed
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Kirk's, for this Kirk in particular, and for all that suffer for the name of Christ.
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Okay, so you pray for the Church of Christ in general, also the global church, right, for reformed churches, so in other words, you know, like good churches, true churches, for this church in particular, for the church you belong to, so for us this will be this church, and for all that suffer in the name of Christ, so for martyrs and for those persecuted in particular, for all our superiors, the
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King's majesty, the Queen and their children, we don't have a
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King or Queen, but same thing still applies for authorities, for the magistrates, ministers, whole body of the congregation, wherever they are members, as well as their neighbors absent in their lawful affairs, and for those that are at home.
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Okay, so those around them, those who are in authority over them, or even under them, right, these are all the different things that you ought to pray for.
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Yeah, I would encourage you to list out these sorts of things, too, even particular superiors. I haven't done this for my family.
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I have done this for myself, though. I've written down all my superiors in the workplace, in, you know, in the nation.
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You know, I've written down the, yeah, the different authorities over us. I try to pray for them all, and yeah, that would be good to do with the children, too.
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When I get home, I'll have to add more index cards, or ask Sarah to do that.
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She's usually the one who adds index cards for me. All right, so we end up going through a lot of this very quickly.
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I'll add a couple of other notions about prayer and its effect for those who are not converted.
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If you're familiar with the Donatist controversy, there was a controversy during the time of Augustine that was about whether or not one who, a priest who defected from the faith, if those who had received communion from him still got the spiritual benefits of communion.
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You know, in other words, does it count if this person wasn't a believer? And so the
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Latin terms that were used were ex opera operantis, from the worker working, right?
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That means like he is the one that adds power to it, right? Or ex opera operato, which is, no, it's the act itself that has the power.
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The reality is that neither of those are quite, you know, the good side of that controversy was that, well, it's not the minister.
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It's the one that, or it's the, yeah, the sacrament itself can still have power, right?
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I think Luther famously said that he'd be willing to take the Lord's Supper from Satan's steaming claw or something like that.
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The idea being that it's not, yeah, it's not the one administering it that gives it power. Yet at the same time, it is not the act in itself that has power in itself, though it is right to deny that it comes from the minister, right?
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These things must be joined with faith. You know, it must be joined with the word of God. That's why when the, you know, when the
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Latin Mass is said, and, you know, they're just rambling a bunch of stuff as a magic incantation to transfigure the, transubstantiate the bread and wine, right?
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That is not, it's not accomplishing anything. It's not edifying anyone, et cetera. But, yeah, the act with the word, with the understanding does accomplish something.
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And so, yeah, this is not to say that the act of prayer itself, apart from any kind of understanding, you know, just mumbling some words that you're reading off a sheet of paper or whatever, has some effect, but it's still right to teach, to prepare for an anticipation of conversion.
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And also, you know, anticipating that God might work in ways and times that you aren't able to discern, especially at early ages.
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Yeah, and keep in mind, I mean, you've all have heard me talk about this stuff before. I think that people are way too, yeah, tend to be way too eager to trust their discernment on these things, but that does not, at early ages, but that does not mean that I'm suggesting it does not happen, or it is rare, right?
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I am just saying that, yeah, that we should not be so eager to trust ourselves.
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Yeah, to discern faith at early ages. Okay, questions?
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We have a good bit of time here. Yeah, I anticipate this going a lot longer. Let's see, anything else
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I can add about prayer? Anybody have any observations from their own family worship and prayer, or difficulties they've encountered that they would like, yeah, to ask a question about, anything like that?
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Tim, do you have anything to add to all this? Okay. Encourage your kids towards secret prayer as well, right?
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This is not just prayer in a group. Encourage them to pray by themselves as well. Another good time for prayer with your children is in discipline, right?
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In discipline, they ought to be asking God for forgiveness, so that is a very good time to teach them how to pray and to confess their sin and ask
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God for forgiveness. Okay, yeah, pray according to the will of God, right?
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The will of God is ultimately for His glory. This is what you see in the
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Lord's Prayer, is what the will of God is. You know, our Father's heaven, hallowed be your name.
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Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
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Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Right, so all those things are part of the will of God.
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If we pray contrary to the will of God, it will not be accomplished because God only desires to bring about His will.
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Now, moreover, part of the reason that we are to pray to Him is, it's not because,
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I mean, He doesn't need our prayers. He knows what His will is. He knows what He wants to accomplish. He could bring those things about apart from our prayers.
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He chooses to do it through our prayers in order that we would be transformed and submit ourselves to Him.
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So part of God's whole purpose in ordaining that prayer be the means by which many of these things be accomplished would be for our submission to His mindset, right?
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Our conforming our own wills to His. And so if this is not the main wrestling that is happening in prayer, then prayer isn't really accomplishing its main purpose.
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Right, prayer is not a, yeah, it's not, like I said before, a magic incantation.
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You can just say to make things happen. And it really is given by God for multiple reasons, but a primary one being the conforming of our own wills to His.
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You know, here He gives us this great carrot, right? Amazing carrot. He will answer far beyond we ask or think, but we need to ask according to His will.
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And so, yeah, we must wrestle in order to do that, in order to say, like, this desire that I have to what degree, which parts of it need to be removed so that only the good parts remain, and then how do
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I desire this thing in the way that God wants me to desire it? How do I express that to Him?
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Using words in a way that, like, drill into your mind more, right? Because if you have desires that never go expressed, then you don't really understand yourself that well.
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There's something to expressing them with words that makes it, that solidifies it, and, yeah, articulating it really solidifies it for the individual.
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I'm sure there's all kinds of thoughts you've had before that until you tried speaking them a few times, you didn't realize how poorly, how unclear they were in your head, right?
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Until you've tried speaking them a few times, then you realize, okay, now I know it much better because I've tried expressing it, right?
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Same is true with prayer. You might think you're aligned with the will of God, but it's not until you try to express it several times and really let yourself be directed by scripture and its motivations that you will find that you are, okay?
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Yes. Yeah, so each kid is,
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I mean, depends on the child. The older ones, I expect to pray for a little bit longer, but, yeah, the younger ones are just typically, you know, saying one phrase that's written on the card or whatever, right?
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The older ones, I expect to elaborate a little more, explain more of the reasonings, but it's still,
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I mean, we're still talking about 30 seconds or something, you know, for a child. For my own prayer, yeah,
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I suppose maybe a minute. I don't think that's necessarily good. I think it would be good if I had more things that I were,
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I think it might be good for me to prepare more and have more things like available to look at even so that I'm not just bringing things top of mind that are facing us in the day.
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But, yeah, currently that's what I'm doing, and so it's only, yeah, it's only a minute, but I don't necessarily consider that good.
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Yeah, yes. Yeah, definitely, yeah.
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I mean, that's what we do with our youngest ones. We just say a phrase, you know, let them repeat the phrase, et cetera, yeah.
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And hopefully, you know, yeah, when they become an adult, they'll have years and years and years of having been trained in this on hand, like ready to go, it's a good thing, yeah.
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Okay, anything else? Before I close, yeah, good point. Not necessarily,
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I couldn't tell if you said loud or out loud, I would say no to loud, but out loud, yes.
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Yeah, if you read older books on prayer, they almost always say that you should be praying out loud in all normal circumstances.
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They will acknowledge that you can pray to yourself, not out loud, you see that, you know, for example, in Nehemiah 1,
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I believe it is, but in general, I want us to be praying out loud.
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Yeah, and it's considered odd when someone's not praying out loud, like you see in 1 Samuel 1,
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Hannah's lips are moving, but she's not saying anything, and so Eli thinks she's drunk, right?
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So that's not like a normal thing to not be speaking while you're praying. Scripturally, same goes with reading, right?
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Reading in, and this is not like a moral imperative statement I'm making, I'm just saying that older cultures thought of reading as being an out loud thing.
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The Ethiopian eunuch, he is reading out loud, that is how Philip is able to hear him. So he comes and explains to him,
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Isaiah, right? He's not just reading silently to himself. I think it was,
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Sarah, do you remember, is it Ambrose that, yeah, yeah, was that the order?
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Okay, yeah, it was one of those. Yeah, Athanasius was surprised that he saw Ambrose reading a book without speaking.
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So earlier cultures found that weird to do these things silently. And I have found in my own prayers that I'm just giving myself a free pass on all this stuff.
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I'm like, oh yeah, I kind of toggled that through my mind a little, you know?
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But that wasn't really praying, it's when I have to pray out loud that I'm really engaging in the hard work of expressing myself in a way that is according to God's will.
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It's much more difficult and much more rewarding. You know, same thing's true with, once again, not a spiritual discipline or anything, but with my flashcards.
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You know, I have flashcards I go through, both like Greek Hebrew vocabulary as well as like Bible verses and stuff.
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And when I'm just kind of doing it in my head, I'm just giving myself a free pass on a lot of stuff. But when
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I have to say it out loud, it really is getting drilled in and I'm realizing, wow, I don't actually know this, do I? Okay, Kyrie, you had a question?
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Yeah, yeah, so all our prayer ultimately is to the
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Father through the mediation of the Son by the power of the Spirit. At the same time, since each one is
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God, we can pray to each individually. You do see Jesus say, you'll ask me of anything in my name, right?
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And I believe that's John 14, 14. But there's, yeah, there's a book by John Owen.
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And I think the relevant chapters have been pulled out and it's typically called Communion with God. The chapters that are pulled out where he talks about this, about the distinct fellowship we have with each person of the
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Trinity and that we can pray specifically to the Spirit and specifically to the Son. And it's very good because it talks about the distinctions in our relationship with each as well.
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Like why you might pray particularly to the one. But ultimately, like I said, ultimately all prayers to the
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Father who cares for his children, right? Through the mediation of the Son, who is the high priest, right?
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It's not the Spirit, it's not the priest, it's not the Father, it's the high priest. And then, yeah, by the power of the Spirit. So ultimately that's happening regardless.
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But yes, you can speak to any of the three. Well, let's go ahead and close up there.
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Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of prayer. It is a wonderful privilege to come before the throne of grace. I pray that you would help us to think about this rightly as we lead our families in prayer.