Household Worship - Part 10 - Administration

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Household Worship - Part 11 - Participation

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and maybe see the Heavenly Father. Thank you for this day that you've given us to worship you, pray that you would bless our continued study of family worship.

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In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so there should be handouts that, thanks,

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Brayden will be passing around it looks like. All right, so today we're gonna be talking about the administration of household worship.

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This ended up, I ended up having enough to say just on scheduling time and place that this ended up being all it is.

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Some of the other related things about how to administer household worship will appear in subsequent studies.

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I wanted to start off with this quote from Daniel Caldry. Reminder that Daniel Caldry was one of the

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Westminster divines. He wrote the following, every chief householder has a curam and a maram, the charge of souls of his family.

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Not properly pastoral, but very like it. He must give an account of the souls of his wife, children, and servants, as well as the magistrates of the souls of his subjects, of the minister of the souls of his people.

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It concerns him, therefore, very nearly to endeavor to make them religious, which is the only way to save their souls.

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So just talking about the particular motivation and particular responsibility that lies on a householder to care for those under his charge, particularly because he will have to give an account for them.

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All right, yes, yes.

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I think religious primarily refers to ceremonial worship there. So another word that also strikes people as odd is cultic, right, like cultic worship is ceremonial worship, right?

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A lot of people only use that word for false beliefs, but ceremonial worship is cultic, right?

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Yeah, it has ceremonies and things. So when he says religious, he just means like ceremonial worship, you know, the official parts of worship, not just believing the right things, but actually, and not just doing the right things, but actually performing ceremonial worship to God with reading, praying, singing.

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Yeah, yes. Yeah, so that is a common thing that you will hear said is that Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship.

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And I suppose the reason that people say that, well, there's several reasons, right? But yeah, you know, if you've been burnt by particular church structures or whatever, they want you to think that, oh, you can have a relationship with Jesus without all that, which in some sense is true, but in a very important sense is not because God, because Christ instituted the church and commanded us to gather and to be part of it.

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And so it's, yeah, none of that really makes sense. But James 1 .17

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says, excuse me, not 1 .17, 1 .27 says, religion is pure and undefiled before God the

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Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction to keep oneself unstained from the world. So you see, even scripture speaks of religion.

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Now there it is trying to show that God desires mercy more than sacrifice, that is the point, but he desires sacrifice as well.

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Like a sacrifice of praise is required by him. Religion is not a bad word. So yeah, when people are doing that, they are trying to, it's a marketing pitch, right?

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That is designed to take the things that you don't like about Christianity, minify those to raise up the things that you do like about Christianity.

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Do you have any further thoughts on what's going on when someone says that, right?

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Ceremony leads to superstition and like false senses of assurance. Yeah, yeah, so that's what a lot of people think, where, yeah, where like it says here, it actually often leads to a true faith.

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Anything else you wanted to add to that? No, okay. All right, all that makes sense, any questions there?

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And obviously, religion, relationship, those words sound similar, so that's why it's an effective marketing tool.

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Yeah, what, I mean, what is relationship? Everybody has a relationship with Jesus. Some, it's just a relationship of judgment.

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That's not, yeah, that is not the kind of relationship that we should be seeking. All right, so let's talk about scheduling household worship.

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We have talked before about the frequency of household worship, and that had implications for the schedule, but I did want to talk about this more directly.

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Secret prayer, so first of all, we're gonna talk about scheduling it in relation to secret worship.

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Okay, so secret worship is that worship which is just an individual with God, okay, not families together, just an individual with God.

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Secret prayer must be accommodated by a household worship schedule. All right, if secret prayer is commanded, then it must be accommodated by whatever the schedule is.

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Matthew 6 .6, but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your

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Father who sees in secret will reward you. All right, so prayer.

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Yeah, secret prayer is commanded by God. If that's the case, then yeah, it's necessary that whatever the schedule is, it have some space for secret worship.

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Secret prayer should be informed by the scriptural pattern of morning and evening worship. We've talked about this before. This isn't just the case for household worship.

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It applies to individual secret worship as well.

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Psalm 92, one through two. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O most high, to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night.

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Okay, secret prayer in the morning precedes prayer together. Consider this.

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Mark 1 .35 to 37 says, in rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

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Simon and those who were with him searched for him. They found him and said to him, everyone is looking for you. Secret prayer in the evening follows prayer with others.

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Matthew 14 .23, and after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.

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When evening came, he was there alone. Now, I don't just say these things because of the observations from those verses.

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This is just a natural reality that individuals have more flexibility with their schedules than groups.

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And so, towards the edges of the day, more flexibility is required because you have different wake -up schedules, different sleeping schedules, et cetera.

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Different people in the household will need different amounts of sleep. And groups together, the larger the group is, the closer towards the middle of the day they typically meet to accommodate the most schedules.

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This is just reality. If we meet as a whole congregation for worship, and that's happening in the middle of the day, then naturally family worship is going to be towards the edges of the day.

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And then the same continues to be true for even smaller groups, for just individuals, that they would have the most flexibility and so their worship should be closer to the edges of the day, even closer to the edges of the day than family worship.

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So this is just like a natural observation about schedules. This is not a statement about how acceptable prayer is or anything like that.

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It's not like, oh yeah, it's the most acceptable during the edges of the day or something like that. Although there is something to be said about opening the day with prayer and really committing the whole thing with thankfulness to the

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Lord and then thanking him at the end of the day. There is something to that. But my point is just rather about the realities of schedules and flexibility that would indicate it is only wise to make space for the smallest groups closest towards the edges and for the largest groups closer toward the middle.

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Hopefully that makes sense. That reasoning makes sense. All right.

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And first, this is from the directory of family worship. And first, for secret worship, it is most necessary that everyone apart and by themselves be given to prayer and meditation.

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The unspeakable benefit whereof is best known to them who are most exercised therein. This being the mean whereby and special way communion with God is entertained in right preparation for all other duties obtained.

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So in the Westminster Standards, directory of family worship explains that before family worship happens in the morning, there should have been time for secret worship.

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Directory of family worship eight. On the Lord's day, so this is particular commands for the Lord's day, directions for the

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Lord's day. On the Lord's day, after every one of the family apart and the whole family together have sought the

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Lord, so the implication being the whole family apart is happening first and the whole family together is happening after, have sought the

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Lord in whose hands the preparation of men's heart are to fit them for the public worship and to bless them, the public ordinances, the master of the family ought to take care that all within his charge repair to the public worship that he and they may join with the rest of the congregation.

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All right, so individuals, families, and then the whole church together.

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That's the picture that is given here in the directory of family worship.

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So conclusion, family worship must be scheduled late enough in the morning and early enough in the evening that family members may be faithful in the secret worship.

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Okay, so that's just the observation from recognizing that secret worship is an important duty for every

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Christian. Any questions about that? Yeah, Brayden, did you have a question?

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Yeah, just separate prayer time by themselves. I mean, it's good for a husband and wife to pray together occasionally, but I don't believe there's a particular pattern or regularity that's required for that.

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So yeah, individuals, then families, and then churches. Yeah, so secret worship, if that isn't obvious from the verse given in Matthew 6, 6, where it says, but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door.

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Now, this isn't a command about every prayer, right? It's not saying that every prayer needs to be secret, but that individual prayer ought to be secret, right?

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If you are praying just individually by yourself, not with others, it would be wrong for you to go and do that in a public place intentionally to show off, right?

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But private prayer, but yeah, individual prayer ought to be secret.

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So that's why it's often called secret worship. Individual worship, secret worship, those are the same thing.

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It's just that, yeah, if you do it poorly, it's not necessarily secret. And yeah, and that would include reading and praying.

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I believe singing's a little different on this regard given that you see the command to sing particularly applies to each other, right?

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The commands in the New Testament about singing are admonish one another in hymns, songs, and spiritual songs.

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So I'm not inclined to think that singing is a necessary part of secret worship, but I would say for those who do not have families with which to, who live by themselves and do not have families for doing family worship together, they still ought to be singing since this is a means that God has given them.

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They wouldn't want to neglect that altogether. Brayden, were you gonna say something? Mm -hmm.

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Yeah, I think that would be household prayers, right? Yeah, your prayers are not hindered.

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But yeah, it is primarily considering the relationship between husband and wife. So that's why it's just addressing that there without pulling in the children in that passage.

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Okay, any other questions? And this is, and I've probably mentioned this a lot before, but those who have written on prayer that I have read almost always observe that this is the first aspect to go of a

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Christian's life if he begins backsliding or apostatizing, right?

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Is that because it is, because no one is watching, there's no reward, et cetera, right?

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It's very easy to neglect secret prayer. It's very easy to neglect secret worship. And so this is like the initial line of defense in your life.

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It's something that's important to preserve and for householders to encourage their whole family to preserve by giving them explicit space for it.

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Yeah, and this is something that I've been improving in my own home is being more explicit with the children of what I want that time used for before and after family worship.

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Before, yeah, after they wake up and before they go to bed. So yeah, all right, scheduling household worship in relation to work.

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So work is another duty that God has given us. Ecclesiastes 9 .10, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.

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Let family worship be performed when worldly business can best be laid aside.

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That was a quote from someone. I forget who that was a quote from, but there it is. John 9 .4,

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we must work the works of him who sent us me while it is day.

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Night is coming when no one can work. Now, that obviously is speaking metaphorically, but it's also just observing, but the metaphor is being used as an obvious reality, right, is that typically, people are not working while it's night.

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Typically, they're working while it's day. If work is, I know some people have night jobs and things like that, but given that work is a duty that typically is happening throughout the day, yeah, it would make sense that you would not structure your household in such a way to hinder that, right?

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You could imagine, well, if everyone wakes up late and then I, you know, and then we start family worship late and then work is starting later, right?

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Instead, it needs to be early enough to accommodate work. Yeah, work or recreation that distracts from worship represents disordered priorities.

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Luke 10, 41 to 42 says, but the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.

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Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. So you're probably familiar with this passage where Martha is busy, you know, cooking and cleaning and doing other things and upset that Mary's not helping her, but Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus learning.

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So there is a, yeah, there's a implied priority here. A lot of people feel like they're too busy for family worship, but what does that mean?

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What's the more critical thing or the more critical obligation that stands above the other in that situation, right?

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It's work is the most important thing. We'll make room for family worship if there is time, but no, it should be the other way around.

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Like our priorities should be that we serve God first and then man second.

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Yeah, a lot of things to think about here. You know, there's a lot of ways that people let things interfere in their life, sports for kids, stuff like that, right?

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No, if the sports are too busy, well then that's allowed to be a hindrance, not only to family worship, but even to corporate worship, even to our gathered worship here together on Sundays.

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A lot of people will end up enrolling their kids in travel sports that require them to be gone and then, yeah, and these are all considered reasonable things because it's things that other people do, but that's not the standard.

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The standard is not what other people do. Standard is what God has commanded of us. Yeah, I'll also observe that, and I've tried thinking through what an appropriate response to this is, but if you've never considered how electricity has really changed the temptations that are involved in some of this, right?

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Like it used to be that while it is light, you can work. While it is not light, you cannot work, and there was a pretty set window during the day of when work was profitable and when it wasn't, so you really had to make the most of your day and wake up before the sunrise, right, and make sure that you took advantage of all the sunrise that exists because after that you've only got candlelight to work with, that kind of thing.

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Now that, yeah, now that we have electricity, people can work pretty late at night, effectively, and so this has led to people burning a lot of daylight hours that aren't even used, right?

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A lot of people wake up while it's broad daylight. I mean, that's probably the most common situation for most people is they're waking up while it is completely light outside, and so what that means is that the, the diversity of schedules has increased because it can be increased, right?

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It used to be that people were all fairly aligned on this. Right, if you ever, if you've ever worked on a remote team where you're all in different time zones, right, so it's like working on a remote team is good if you're all

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West Coast or something, but if you're spread West Coast to East Coast, well, there's a three -hour time difference and your meetings all have to be really wedged into, you know, that narrow gap of the day where the

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West Coast people have arrived and the East Coast people have not left yet. Okay, that's kind of what the day just for people living around each other has become because electricity allows us to work later at night, right, there's a diversity of schedules that makes it harder, and I think that's something worth considering, how we have special temptations because, like, electricity is a good thing, right, and, like, being able to work late is a good thing, but the diversity of schedules is a temptation, especially if those exist within your own home, and then what that means when you're visiting with others, you know, that kind of thing, whereas, you know, there might be an expectation in former generations, well, like, we have to get home before I turn into a pumpkin, right, before the sun actually shuts, et cetera.

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So just worth thinking about how we are exposed to particular temptations that other generations have not been when it comes to these kinds of things, and I think that that helps if you are to be a little more militant about trying to preserve the priorities that God would have us to preserve, if you realize, if you treat a lot of the temptations you are under as things that are completely expected and completely normal when the reality is they're pretty unique temptations in human history, you will be more inclined to make accommodations for those temptations, whereas if you think of them as very unique throughout human history, you'll be more inclined to fight them to preserve

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God's priorities. Hopefully that makes sense. Not saying electricity is bad. Okay.

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A few quotes, directory of family worship 10. These exercises ought to be performed in great sincerity, without delay, laying aside all exercises of worldly business or hindrances, notwithstanding the mockings of atheists and profane men in respect of the great mercies of God in this land and of his severe corrections, wherewith lately he has exercised us.

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I would like to know historically what was going on that they are referring to because they're,

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I mean, they're suggesting that there's, yeah, that there were things going on in England at the time that were distressing them that required significant prayer.

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I like this quote. I thought it was funny. Given the modern connotations, be not clubbing abroad when you should be praying at home,

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Thomas Doolittle. I like, I think he is talking about social clubs, you know, like, yeah, and I have read,

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I have read books from earlier eras. I'm not sure which eras that mentioned some of the changes in life, you know, like, oh, well, now that there are lights, you know, gas lights or whatever they are, you know, people are taking late evenings and they're not with their family in the evening, et cetera.

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And I think he is talking about those kinds of realities. I don't know what the particular temptations of that era would have been, but yeah, apparently social clubs at hours that would be more suitable for being at home with family were, yeah, were being used for social clubs.

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All right, so conclusion, family worship must be scheduled early enough in the morning and late enough in the evening that family members may be faithful in their labors.

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So yeah, so both of these combined, right? Secret worship, putting some kind of upper bound on the time of family worship.

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Work, putting some kind of lower bound on the time of family worship in the morning. There's, yeah, it gives you the parameters with which you are working.

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All right, any other questions about that? All right.

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Scheduling household worship with consistency. Okay, so consistency in household worship is of primary importance.

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Hebrews 3 .13 says, but exhort one another every day as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

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I've always very much liked this passage because it is a surprising one for most people when they think of their duties.

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A lot of times they think, okay, I need to be reading the word of God daily. I need to be praying daily. These are pretty common

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Christian convictions, but the idea that they ought to be exhorting one another every day is not a typical

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Christian conviction. But it also confused me for a long time. How is it possible that this can be done when you, okay, so now here we have like the opposite, right?

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We have special enablement. We have electronic messengers. We can video chat with others. It's a lot easier to do this than it used to be in some ways, right?

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So I always wondered, well, how were they supposed to accomplish this before? Then you realize, well,

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Ephesians and Colossians, when it commands, you know, admonish one another in hymn songs and spiritual songs, it's doing that directly in adjacency to all the commands about household relations, where it's talking about how husbands and wives are supposed to treat each other, how masters and servants are supposed to treat each other, how parents and children are supposed to treat each other.

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So the command to admonish one another in song is primarily supposed to be lived out on a daily basis in families.

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And so Hebrews 3, 13, when it says exhort one another every day, I believe it is primarily to be lived out in families because you're not necessarily going to encounter, you know, other members of your church every single day.

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Yes. Sure, well,

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I'm pointing out that the admonishing in, right, sorry, yeah, in Ephesians and Colossians, is that,

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I mean, that's kind of formal, right? And so Hebrews 3, 13, I'm not saying that it is formal. I'm just saying that we are called to do this daily.

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The place that that is supposed to happen is in families. And so that would, so if you have this organic, like this, like informal organic command that's supposed to be lived out, that on a regular basis, that would imply some kind of formality to it as well.

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That that would be a good thing, at least. Yeah, yes.

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Maybe, maybe smaller communities made it easier, but it's not clear to me that that would always be the, it would always be easier.

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Yeah, and so if it's not clear, I'm not trying to use Hebrews 3, 13 as a definitive proof text for this point.

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That's generally been the case with a lot of these proof texts, right, is they're highlighting certain principles that I'm pointing out, right?

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And so this just like, the regularity of exhortation is of an importance that most

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Christians do not realize. So yeah, let us be regular in family worship.

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So it's already, if it is a duty, if we've accepted that from the previous lessons, then of course, consistency is important.

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And so this is just a verse about the nature of consistency. Okay, any other questions?

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All right, consistency in household worship can be promoted through the accountability of an explicit schedule.

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Romans 4, 15b says where there is no law, there is no transgression. First Corinthians 14, eight, and if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?

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All right. Oliver Haywood says, let it be a state of time, if possible, known to the family that none may plead excuse for their absence, but that the whole family may attend.

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So yeah, this has been something that we have done for a number of years now is have a state of time.

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And even a state of time makes it, kids aren't always watching clocks, so we actually have a like Google assistant unit that like loudly states what time it is and what's coming next.

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It's, I don't know, 729, grab a Bible and sit down. It yells to everyone.

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All right, hey kids, stop tearing up bulletins. Hey, Ritz, Ritz.

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All right. Yeah, so that's useful. On some points, that seems obvious, but on other points,

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I think a lot of people do this where it's kind of loosey -goosey each day and then it'll often get skipped.

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So for example, we don't have an exact stated schedule on Saturday, and especially when the, because a lot of times we want to catch up on sleep on Saturday.

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But then when we had the food pantry, a lot of times Ford would go early to help with the food pantry, and so because it wasn't, and that was happening at different times that he would go, right?

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And I wouldn't be, and I'd be up at different times, and because there wasn't a stated time, it wasn't happening. So that would be an example where it would have been good to have had a stated time so that, you know, it's just very clear what's supposed to happen.

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It's not being decided each day in a way where, yeah, where you have to look back and be like, oh, well, we should have done it this time, and we weren't thinking ahead.

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All right. Okay, consistency in household worship will be hindered or obstructed by necessity.

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Matthew 24, 20, pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. Suggesting that,

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I mean, the point of that proof text being that there are emergencies that can happen on times when you're supposed to be worshiping, right?

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Yeah, there are going to be obstructions and hindrances to family worship.

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Yeah, I wouldn't want to suggest there will not be such things. But it is also the case that consistency in family worship may be hindered by baseless excuses.

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In Haggai 1, 2, thus says the Lord of hosts, the people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the

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Lord. So Haggai points out that all the people, or well, the

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Lord points out through Haggai that all the people are building up their own homes, they're doing all their own things, they've got lots of that, but it's not time to build the house of the

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Lord. This is often a way we go about our lives. We have our own priorities directly in mind, those come first, those it is time for, but it's not time for the worship of the

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Lord. So there's all kinds of excuses, right? You look through the

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Proverbs and you see the excuses the sluggard makes, right? There's a lion in the streets.

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He's not willing, he's willing to use any kind of, any kind of danger, any kind of difficulty as an excuse to not get work done.

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You saw this during COVID, right? A lot of churches for, I mean, over a year, some of them, right, were not meeting together for worship because that lion was in the streets.

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So if this is, I mean, if this is a temptation for whole corporate churches, whose very existence, you know, depends on the meeting, it is, it's definitely a temptation for families.

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So don't, don't, so while I'm acknowledging that, yeah, there can be real hindrances, don't use excuses in a baseless way.

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That's not a, yeah, be aware of the temptation to do that. All right, consistency in household worship should be pursued despite hindrances, 2

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Corinthians 8, 11 through 12. So now finish doing it well so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have.

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For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. So in 2

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Corinthians, Paul is writing ahead to the Corinthians to give to the Jerusalem collection, and he is, yeah, and he's pointing out that, okay, maybe you thought you were going to have more when you said you were going to give, and now you have less than you thought you would have.

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And so what's the tendency to do in that situation just to neglect the whole pledge, right?

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Just to say, oh, well, I can't do the whole thing that I intend to do, so I'm not going to do it at all. Right, do not have that attitude.

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Instead, like it says, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.

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So if you only have a little bit of time, give a little bit of time. It's not, oh, well, we don't have enough time to do the whole thing that we wanted to do.

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And this is a common mindset people have when they're starting off family worship is they have really high expectations of what it's supposed to be.

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And when they don't have a lot of time, it just seems easier to not even try.

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Don't approach it that way. You know, really just change your expectations. You're not going to read a whole chapter that day if you don't have time for a whole chapter.

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You're not going to, not everyone in the family is going to pray, just one person, you know, just the father's going to pray.

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You're not going to sing a whole song. You're just going to sing the doxology. You know, do whatever you need to do to be consistent.

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Give what you have to give, just like the Corinthians are called to give what they have to give. Don't say just because my gift isn't that good,

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I'm not going to give it at all. All right, consistency in household worship that pleases

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God is achievable because he is merciful to those who worship with sincerity. Right, if you think of God as a very cruel, demanding master, you're going to take your talent and you're going to bury it in the ground or put it under a tissue, right?

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That is what you are going to do if you think of it that way and you think that, oh, he wants this much.

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I can't do that much. I'm not even going to try. What's the point? He is merciful.

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This is achievable in a way that is pleasing to God because he is merciful to those who worship with sincerity.

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In 2 Chronicles 31, you see the people rediscover all the things they were supposed to be doing. They're celebrating the Passover. They are, they are uh, not doing everything the way they should.

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They're not doing it at the right time. Passover is supposed to happen at a certain time and they have missed that time.

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And there's a significant question that comes up here because you recall, you know, early on in the days of the people of Israel, what happened when

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Nadab and Abihu, you know, offered incense in the wrong way, right?

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Or the wrong kind of incense. You know, their fire comes down from heaven and destroys them.

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Or what about Uzzah touching the ark?

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You know, so you see all these people celebrating the Passover in a way that is not in line with what

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God has commanded. It's on a different day. It's on, you know, it's not the right people who are making the sacrifices at first.

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What is, what are we to think of that? Well, there's a difference between knowing the law and then directly disobeying it, right?

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And as Nadab and Abihu did, or Uzzah, and trying to follow the law as best as you are capable of.

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Okay, those are two different things. And so we should see, yeah, we should recognize that and we shouldn't just treat

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God like a harsh and cruel master who would not treat us favorably if we did what we can do.

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And so just bury our talent in the dirt. Okay, don't be that, don't be that servant.

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What happens to him? The master casts him out to utter darkness, right? That is the, that's one of those passages where Jesus switches from speaking in parables and metaphors and goes right into the thing that it actually, that he's actually talking about.

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He casts him out into utter darkness. All right, 2

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Chronicles 31, 18 through 20 says, for a majority of the people, many of them from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun had not cleansed themselves yet they ate the

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Passover otherwise than prescribed for Hezekiah had prayed for them saying, may the good

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Lord pardon everyone who has his heart set to seek God, the Lord, the God of his fathers, even though not according to the sanctuary's rules of cleanness.

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The Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people. All right, so Hezekiah came with sincerity.

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He asked for God's forgiveness. God forgave. All right, something from Oliver Haywood.

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Suppose the vocations of a householder call him abroad about his lawful business. So this is if the father has some business trip he needs to go on.

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Before the rest of the family can rise out of their beds, may he omit family prayer. Answer, in such a case, he must go to prayer with such of his family as are risen as is likely some prepare him for his departure.

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Okay, so you can see what he's doing is he's answering, okay, well, what if I don't have everything to give?

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What do I give? And he answers, like, these are the things that you should be thinking about so you can give what you can give. So pray with those who are already risen.

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However, he must also pray alone, committing himself and his family into God's hands, which the Lord may graciously accept.

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So in other words, there's no reason why you shouldn't still be doing secret worship, right?

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Three, he must double his diligence as his return or at another time and mourn for what he cannot mend.

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A good heart will lament any providential hindrance of communion with God. So he will not consider this just a, you know, this is not like a snow day when you're a kid where, yes, don't have to go to school until snow day, right?

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Like that shouldn't be the attitude towards providential hindrances of family worship. It should be, ah, this is a regrettable situation.

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We need to make up for this and make sure we're really spending time in God's word. That should be your attitude towards it.

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But if possible, so arrange your worldly concerns as not to hinder your family exercise.

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Prudent foresight may be of great service here, but if your calling be such that this cannot be, do as the

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Israelites did. Gather double the day or night before. Two omers for a man or a family. Lay in for the day following what may stand in your stead by pleading with God for what you will need.

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So in other words, you know, do be prudent about these kinds of situations so that you are mitigating against the changes in your schedule.

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And then on top of that, yeah, just pray for extra, yeah, pray for mercy from God.

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And then on top of that, do, if you find yourself in that kind of situation where you are not sure when you will not have time or you frequently don't have time, go ahead and spend some extra time with your family so that it would not be such a, not so much would be lost in those occasions.

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You know, I try to do that with my own Bible reading. I know there's some times that it's going to be hindered. And so I really do try to get ahead to make sure that it's not, yeah.

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So that when that happens, well, at least I was ahead. So now I'm just back on track. All right, any questions about schedule?

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All right, let's talk about places. First of all, let's talk about places considering distractions.

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A lot of this is going to seem like a silly thing given that, you know, we have small little places too.

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There's not really a whole lot of options here, but you do find that, you know, when you're on vacation or other times, these are things worth thinking about.

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All right, so the place of household worship is not a negligible matter. Acts 16, 13, and on the

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Sabbath day, we went out to the gate to the riverside where we suppose there was a place of prayer. We sat down and spoke to the woman who had come together.

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So it was interesting that, you know, there's places for prayer, like places that are accommodating to prayer.

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Now that's not place of prayer like a temple as though prayers are better accepted in a certain place, but places that are suitable for praying, you know, places without distractions.

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Place of household worship ought to be relatively free from distractions. Mark 1 .35 says in rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed.

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Luke 5 .16, but he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. Now, obviously this applies to individuals as we're reading about here, but it also applies to others in groups as well that you would want there to not be unnecessary distractions.

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You know, speaking of older books that I've read where people are lamenting changes in technology and society and the way they introduce new temptations,

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I don't think this was me reading this. I think it was Sarah reading a book that she relayed to me how someone was complaining that that era of architecture ceased to have prayer closets like the era before, you know, that was going out of style to have prayer closets designed into the floor layout plan.

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This is like in Puritan New England, right? That, yeah, before all the houses had, you know, in the floor layout, a prayer closet, and then over time they ceased to have that.

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So this is something worth thinking about. I often fantasize about what I would do if I lived in a place that was not so space constrained as Silicon Valley is, right?

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What I would do as far as, you know, having an extra room maybe devoted for household worship where you could have everything all set and ready to go, you know, your hymnals, your

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Bibles and everything, and seating, no toys around to distract kids, you know, stuff like that.

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I have seen Eastern Orthodox families in other places will occasionally have something like this.

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Now, the reason they have that for family prayer is because they are big into iconography, right, and they just want a room to store all their statues and everything.

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Well, they don't have statues. They have reliefs. Do you all know about that? So in Eastern Orthodoxy, they are against 3D images, but they allow it up until, as long as you cannot grasp the nose of any of the icons, it is flat enough to be acceptable.

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So they have a lot of reliefs and a lot of paintings, and they, because they consider this part of their devotion to God, sometimes they will have a room dedicated to that kind of thing.

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Of course, you know, we don't do that kind of stuff, but it would be good to have a room.

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Like that, that is a, I think about how that would be a nice thing. Of course, you know, we live in an area where, well, your garage is also your pantry is also your laundry room, your bedroom is also your office, right?

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You don't have like tons of space to be spilling out. And so, yeah, my living room is also my chapel, basically.

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All right. Yeah, you should make your place, a place that's free of distractions.

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I know a lot of homes, the TV is something that's just on all the time in the background, right?

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Like that's a, that's not a very healthy thing to do, but it's very common for people to just have the

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TV on all the time as like a, almost like a,

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I don't know, like a decoration, even. You know, just like in a, like if you go to a sports bar and they have all the

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TVs on so you can just kind of glance at them occasionally, you're not really watching anything, you just look at it occasionally. So that would be the kind of thing that would be very distracting if that sort of thing was on during household worship.

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Yeah. I have tried to put away toys more into the bins that are not as accessible.

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Okay. All right. The place of household worship may tempt members to violate the third commandment by means of distraction.

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Exodus 27. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

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Maybe you've never considered that, but to worship while distracted is to violate the third commandment because you're singing to God without thinking about him, you're praying to him without thinking about him.

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All right. Those are significant things. And so it's also reason to think about your own responsibility as if you are one who has any management of the home, what this implies, because the

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Bible has serious things to say about those who would tempt little ones. You know, temptation is sure to come, but woe to those by whom the temptation comes.

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Better for a millstone to be tied around his neck. Now that might sound very harsh for just having toys out during family worship or something like that, but it's a serious thing to tempt little ones who want to not unnecessarily tempt them.

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So do be thinking about your role in that if you have management of the household. A place of household worship may be a place of rest.

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Yeah, we're going to look at two examples here. So Acts 1, 13 through 14, when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying.

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Peter and John and James and Andrew and Philip and Thomas and Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon, the zealot, and Judas, the son of James.

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All these are with one accord devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers.

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Imagine this room was, yeah, not a whole lot of space. Not many people in it.

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A place for household worship may also be a place of meals. Luther was famous for doing his household worship at meals.

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That's why there's a whole book called Table Talk that records a lot of his observations from those times where he opened up the

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Bible at the meals. And of course, there's the Ligonier publication called

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Table Talk that's named after that, which is, you know. So if you never knew what that was about, what that was referring to, but you've seen those publications, that comes from Luther's household worship that happened around the table.

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All right, Luke 22, 19. And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, this is my body, which is given for you.

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Do this in remembrance of me. So here, you know, we have an actual act of worship that's happening around the table. Of course, all the feasts in the

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Old Testament imply that around the table is an appropriate place to, yeah, be thinking religious thoughts and to be worshiping.

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Luke 24, 30 through 31, or 35. When he was at table with them, he took bread and blessed it, and broke it and gave it to them.

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Their eyes were open, they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. Then they told what happened on the road and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.

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So I find this passage interesting because it was particularly at the breaking of bread that he was made known to them.

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Yeah, anyway, all this to say, not as a hard and fast rule, but these are just some examples that you see in scripture of places where there would be kind of a focus like, you know, being in a particular place to contemplate the word of God.

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All right. Considering also matters of privacy, and like I said, these kinds of things might matter more if you are in a more complicated household or if you are vacationing and you are in someone else's household.

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I know that it's interesting in times I get together with my family, either unbelieving family or family that is believing but doesn't have any kind of household worship practice, you know, trying to figure out, well, how do

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I do this in a way that's not like unnecessarily awkward or unnecessarily cowardly?

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Yeah, these are things worth considering. The place of household worship must not be designed to cowardly avoid persecution,

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Daniel 6 .10. When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went into his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem.

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He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously. So he's not going out of his way to be persecuted, but he is certainly not avoiding it either.

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Place of household worship must not demonstrate hypocrisy, you know, trying to show off to others,

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Matthew 6 .5. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, they may be seen by others.

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Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. And then the other principle, the place of household worship ought not to invite disruption,

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Mark 6 .31 to 32. And he said to them, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest for a while.

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For many were coming and going, they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.

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And they were not successful at this as you continue reading in Mark, but still you see the objective to get away for a little bit of privacy so that they can be disciples around Jesus and not just with a large crowd.

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Okay, so these are the principles you want to put into place. What does that mean for, yeah, what does that mean for these situations?

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Yeah, you would find some space where you can observe household worship without doing it in a way that boasts to others, without doing it in a way that invites disruption, but also without doing it in a way that's like really trying to keep it 100 % airtight.

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You know, even though we talk about secret worship and talk about not boasting in front of others, it doesn't mean that it's supposed to be a secret in the sense of like no one can know.

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And if they know, then we've got serious problems, right? It's a, yeah, it's, yeah, it's just that you shouldn't be bragging about it.

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You shouldn't be going out of your way to advertise that you are worshiping the Lord. All right, any questions?

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Yes, what's that?

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Oh, yeah, you don't have to soundproof your prayer closet now, although that'd be a nice thing to do, yeah. But you also wouldn't want to like add, you know, funnels on it so that to like amplify the sound out of the room, so everyone can know

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I'm praying in here. Any other questions?

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I always speed up right at the end because I think we don't have enough time to then, yeah. Let's, any other questions?

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Okay, any reports? I mean, we've been talking about family worship for a while.

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If anybody wants to share anything that they've learned or improved or encouragements,

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I'd be welcome here too. Yeah, go for it.

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Okay, you finished Matthew, now you're going on Romans, good. All right, well, let's go ahead and let's go ahead and close in prayer here.

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Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your kindness to us and for your mercy on us.

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We pray that you forgive us for our inconsistencies and that you would give us strength to be consistent and that we would worship you as we are called to do, that we would render true religion to you.