Household Worship - Part 2 Frequency

The Natural Duty of Family Worship

All right, could I get someone to pass these out? Maybe, and, all right, Manuel, there you go. So, if you could just pass those back, I guess. All right, so last week made some biblical arguments for having regular household worship.

Now we're gonna talk about what the frequency of household worship should be. To quote our confession, God is to be worshiped everywhere in spirit and in truth, as in private families daily, and in secret, each one by himself.

Okay, so our confession speaks of it being something that's daily, and it gives two proof texts there. And beyond that, the people who wrote this confession, people who came before them, people who came after, spoke of it being a twice-daily thing, not just daily, but specifically morning and evening.

I'm going to try to make an argument for that here today. So, let me start off with something that I forgot to mention last time when we were arguing for family worship. So, what is, if you remember, there were a lot of verses advanced as a biblical case.

At the same time, there is not a very explicit proof text the way that a lot of people would be looking for explicit proof texts. This is a quote from James Alexander. There are some duties so plain that they are rather assumed than commanded in the word of God.

And the number of such is greater than might be supposed on superficial examination. This is especially true of those duties which belong to the family relation, as for example, those of the mother to her babe.

So, in other words, many of the things that we're supposed to do are not explicitly stated in scripture. And this is, it's a lot more than you would initially think. And he concludes later, if there were but two human beings upon earth, they would be drawn, if they were sanctified hearts, to pray with one another.

And so, a lot of this is a matter of natural revelation. When it comes to worship, that is dictated by God's word. But when it comes to some of the other applications of how we ought to worship, as dictated by the light of reason, excuse me, the light of nature and Christian prudence, as the confession says in chapter one, that some things according to the worship of God are ordered that way.

And many things about the family are ordered that way. Many things about the family are matters which you have to simply think about what is nature itself telling us about how the family is supposed to operate.

Not necessarily, well, do we have an explicit proof text that says this, but given what the word of God says, given what we know just from reality of living in this world God has created, what does that mean about our duties to one another?

There was another quote that I wanted to read to you. It said something to the same effect. This is from Baxter. Families are furnished with special advantage and opportunity for worship, so therefore must worship.

Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much will be required, and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask more. It is natural law that therefore needs no explicit command and is also stronger than many explicit commands.

So in other words, not only is it true without an explicit command, in many ways, the way that nature pushes families to worship with one another is an even stronger obligation than scripture, than scripture gives for other things.

If families live in the presence of God, it must apprehend that presence, they must worship him. Now God is ever present, not only with each person as such, but also with every family as such. As he is said to walk among the golden candlesticks in his churches, so does he in families of all by his common presence, and of his servants by his gracious presence.

All right, so yeah, much of family worship is a matter of natural revelation. So I'm going to make some scriptural arguments here, but that does not mean that the end of it is, do we have an explicit proof text.

The real question is, given that scripture has, or sorry, given that, yeah, scripture has required worship to God, and given that it speaks of the family's duties to one another, and that is reinforced by nature, does that have any indication for how we ought to worship him as families?

The answer is yes, I believe it does advocate for morning and evening worship together as a family. So let's go ahead and start working through some of these verses. The Psalms advocate for morning and evening devotion to the Lord.

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. Psalm 119, 147 through 148.

I rise before dawn and cry for help. I hope in your words my eyes are awake before the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promise. Okay, so there you have, yeah, I'm describing rising before dawn and being awake before the watches of the night.

All right, 127 to, Psalm 127 to. If you remember last time, I talked about how Psalm 127, which talks about building up the house, whoever, if the Lord does not build the house, though the laborer labors in vain, the builder labors in vain.

This is talking not just about, you know, secular endeavors of constructing things, et cetera, but it's talking about building up a home. There's a reason why this is the same psalm that talks about children being a blessing and them being like arrows in one's quiver is because it's talking about building a home, and so this is a home that is to be built by religious devotion.

Okay, and what does it say about that? Unless the Lord builds a house, those who build it labor in vain. I think this should say Psalm 127, one through two, not just two, sorry. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep. So you can work as hard as you want on having a happy family, but all of that is nothing unless the Lord is in it, and so if this is the case, if we are to be, yeah, if you would be inclined to rise up early, to go late to rest, trying to build a family, it is right that the morning and the evening, that instead of rising up early with anxious toil, instead of going to bed late anxiously, that those mornings and evenings be dedicated to the Lord in such a way that he would be building up the home.

So these all push us towards a notion of, a pattern of morning and evening devotion to the Lord, especially in Psalm 127 as a family. All right, feel free to ask questions at any point here.

The Pattern of Morning and Evening Prayer in Scripture

Yes.

Yes.

More things than, many truths, many things are implied, but I guess, what's the guardrail of committing the sin of eating communion where she had to be working God? In the worst cases, Pharisees came with a mission.

I guess, what's the guardrail of preventing.

Us from going in that direction?

Yeah, the scripture is the guardrails, right? So that's, first of all, we have scripture. We have the Holy Spirit giving us wisdom. If we lack wisdom, we should ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, right?

And so there's, yeah, those are several guardrails we have. Now, this is not to say that there's a, that this is the easiest task in the world, of figuring out all of our duties, and that we can do so with reckless abandon, or anything like that, right?

However, it is something that we can know, and it's something that, day by day, like if you just think about all your actions, and why you choose to do one thing, and why you don't choose to do the other, a lot of it is not just, you know, random choices.

You've built up an understanding of what is good and right to do in these different situations, where if you were to be asked, well, do you have a proof text that says that that was the right thing to do?

You might be able to come up with something related, but not something exactly that, right? And so, like this example is given about a mother with her babe, right? There's all kinds of things that a woman does for her child that are not commanded in scripture, that are just under the notion of care, right?

Which is commanded in scripture, right? You know, she changes the child's diaper. No, there's no verse about this.

Yeah.

There is one verse, right, that some people use, and it's not really related to this, which is, they shall not all sleep, but they shall all be changed. It's not about babies, though.

But yes.

Yes, yeah. And that is, yes, and that is why I've entitled this Household Worship, because it's not about, yeah, it's not necessarily about, yeah, exactly. Right, or blood relation, even, right? It's about all who are within a household.

In fact, a lot of the older literature, because servants were more common in days before you had mechanical servants of washing machines, et cetera, it was very common to talk about their involvement in family worship as well.

Josh, where are you? Sorry, was that something back there? Oh, the question was, is this just, can this just be a family of one?

Yes.

All right, we have several passages that talk about thrice daily secret worship. Daniel 6 .10, when Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house, where he had windows in his upper chamber, opened toward Jerusalem.

He got down on his knees three times and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously. Psalm 55 .17, evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan and he hears my voice.

This is, Psalm 55 .17 is one of the proof texts that is used for daily family worship up top in the Second Lenten Baptist Confession. So, you know, the authors of this confession considered this relevant.

David speaking of evening and morning and noon, uttering complaint as being a sign that worship together as a family should be a daily thing. And so, why do these scriptures apply? Is it just because, oh, you have a verse that talks about this sort of thing?

Well, no, it is that God, through those best of the saints is setting a pattern for us. You know, if you look at the holiest of men in scripture and you see how they acted, this should indicate something for us.

A lot of people will be quick to use the line that narrative is not prescriptive, right? Or they say that this passage is descriptive, not prescriptive, right, prescriptive. So they would say that, okay, well, this says Daniel does it, but it doesn't say we should do it.

This says David does it, but it doesn't say we should do it. But if you have a pattern of holy men acting a particular way, does that not have implications for how you should act if you want to be a holy man?

And if you have this notion of thrice daily secret worship by the holiest men, what does that imply for the family? Family's not often together at noontime, and so the implications are for the evening and morning when they are together.

So these thrice daily passages still apply because they imply times of worship when the family is together, which would be evening and morning.

Yes?

No, it would make you want it.

Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, another thing to consider is all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. The man of God may be complete and quick for every good work, and if you take a narrative passage and, you know, and if your response to trying to make applications from that is this is just narrative, you're really making scripture not scripture if it has no applications.

Like, it has to have some applications. In fact, it has to have significant ones. If all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, if this narrative is just brute facts about history, then it's not scripture, right?

Because scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, et cetera. And yeah, moral, it has moral implications for us, not just historical facts. All right, pattern of Old Testament worship. Gonna move through these passages pretty quickly and then the next set of passages will be a reason of why should we apply, why should we think that Old Testament ceremonies should indicate how we should worship in the New Testament.

Leviticus 620, this is the offering that Aaron and his son shall offer to the Lord on the day when he is anointed. A tenth of an ephah, a fine flower, as a regular grain offering. Half of it in the morning and half in the evening.

First Chronicles 16, 40 through 41. And he left Zadok the priest and his brothers, the priests before the tabernacle of the Lord in the high place that was at Gibeon to offer burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of burnt offering regularly, morning and evening, to do all that is written in the law of the Lord that he commanded Israel.

First Chronicles 2330. And they were to stand every morning, thanking and praising the Lord and likewise at evening. Second Chronicles 13, 11. They offered to the Lord every morning and evening, every evening burnt offerings and incense of sweet spices.

Set out the showbread on the table of pure gold and care for the golden lamp stand that its lamps may burn every evening for we keep the charge of the Lord our God, but you have forsaken him. Ezra 3, 3.

They set the altar in its place for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning into evening. Okay, so those are a bunch of verses that let you know there is a pattern in these Old Testament ceremonies in the temple that they often involve a morning routine and an evening routine in order to make sure that the worship of God is continual.

All right, so why should those things have implication for us in New Testament worship? Well, first of all, what I just spoke, that all scripture, right, is profitable, so it has to have some application.

But now consider how these passages would push us to allow those things to have weight in our lives. First Corinthians 9, 13. Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple and those who serve at the altar share it in sacrificial offerings?

What is Paul talking about here in First Corinthians 9? Anybody know? Quiz. What is Paul trying to argue for when he appeals to the priests? Yeah, so that's chapters eight and 10, but he's making a specific analogy in chapter nine, like, yeah, that he's arguing for.

Talking about the right for ministers to be financially supported, okay? And so he's saying New Testament ministers should be financially supported. And what's one of his reasons for arguing for that?

It is Old Testament ministry being supported this way. Right, so you could say, oh, well, that's just Old Testament priests, et cetera. Like, how does that have any indication for how New Testament ministry should work?

Well, the answer is, inasmuch as it shows some kind of lasting principle, it ought to be applied. This doesn't mean that we're supposed to have animal sacrifices or things like that. However, it does mean that those who serve God should be supported in the work that they are doing.

So it has implication. So the same thing here. As you see the pattern of worship being something that ought to be continual, particularly that the fires are to be stoked in morning and evening, the fires of worship, ought that not to have implications for the family who is together at morning and evening?

First Peter 2 .5. You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So the Bible makes a direct analogy describing us as being a holy priesthood.

If we are a priesthood and our worship is analogous in some way to the worship of the Old Testament priesthood, there are a lot of ways that you could imagine it should be. Okay, it should be with religious sincerity.

That's something that would be common between them. It should be with sacrificial, offering things that are valuable. And ought it not to be something that is regular and continual in a way that is set by the pattern of the Old Testament, morning and evening?

All right, Psalm 141 .2. May my prayer be set before you like incense. May the lifting of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. So even the psalmist describes that he wants his own worship to be similar to the ceremonial worship.

So his own secret worship ought to be similar to the worship that the priests are performing. Likewise, we should want our family worship to be like that, to be like, yeah, to be like the incense, lifting of hands like the evening sacrifice, right?

So another indication of morning and evening since in the morning they're offering up incense. Psalm 50, 23. The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me, to one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God.

Once again, this is making an analogy between physical animal sacrifices and then the kind of worship the priesthood would have to our own worship before God that is just a sacrifice of praise. Okay, so the Bible makes this analogy many times.

The question is, which parts carry over? Well, it's obviously not the killing of animals. That's the part that is dropped in the analogy, right? But it is similar in the reverence and the sacrifice and in the regularity of it.

Okay, those are the principles that ought to be carried over from one to the other. We have commands in scripture about family instruction that speak of morning and evening. Deuteronomy 6, 7 and 11, 19.

You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down, when you rise. Shall teach them to your children, talking to them when you are sitting in your house and when you are walking by the way and when you lie down and when you rise.

Okay, so in part, this is just talking about, you know, a continual pattern of teaching your children. In part, it is a merism, right? A merism being when you describe two halves to show the wholeness of something, right?

If you say the heavens and the earth, right? That's something that shows like the totality of creation. Okay, and so when he says, when you sit down, when you rise up, this is both times, right? Or when you wake up and when you, yeah, when you wake up and when you lie down.

Those are both things, right? When you sit and when you stand. So in part, it is a merism, but if this instruction is to be more than just a little here, a little there, if it is to have a formal component to it, which last time we spoke about how if these are things that are supposed to be done organically then also they must be done formally if they are to be taken seriously, then when would that formal time be?

Would it not be during the time when the families are together, right? When you rise up, when you lie down.

Yes, right, yes.

Yeah, and just like here, there's organic component that's to it when we're with one another, we speak of God's word, but there's also the formal component like right now where we're gathered in a more formal way, all right.

The Lord’s Prayer, Meals, and Daily Thanksgiving

And now let's go to what I consider to be quite possibly the strongest argument for this morning and evening. If you don't find it a strong argument, don't make that, don't then judge all the others to be therefore weaker.

I just find it personally the most convincing. And Matthew 611 being another one of the verses that the Second London Baptist Confession points to as proof that family worship ought to be daily. Give us this day our daily bread.

If you remember, we pointed out about how the Lord's Prayer being first person plural, give us this day our daily bread implies that this is a prayer that is supposed to be prayed communally, right? And if it is, if the families are communally serving Christ and it ought to be prayed among families.

And if it is for daily bread and it also speaks of thanksgiving to God, is it not right for these prayers to be attached to meals or in the same regularity that you would find meals? First Timothy four through five talking about both marriage and food, that's the preceding context.

It says for everything, and it's talking about those who would forbid eating meat. For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving for it is made holy by the word of God in prayer.

Okay, so food is to be, food is acceptable to eat if it is received with the word of God in prayer. I used to, I grew up with my family saying prayers before meals and there became a point in my life when I started like questioning a lot of family traditions and realizing that a lot of them were somewhat superstitious and I didn't know where they were in scripture.

This is one I had identified as being a superstition that wasn't in scripture. I'm like, why are we praying before the food? Do we think it's gonna poison us if we don't? So I intentionally for probably about four years, you know, as I was in college, like intentionally did not pray before I ate because I felt it was superstitious.

And then I realized, oh no, there are actually verses that talk about praying before meals or thanking God before eating. There are a number of verses about that. It is actually a good thing to do. And not only is it a good thing to do, but food is not appropriately received if it is not received with thanksgiving.

The same applies to the whole day. Your whole day is not appropriately received if it is not received with thanksgiving. Your evening is not appropriately received if it is not received with thanksgiving.

This has implications for the family that goes about their days and evenings together, that it would be something that they are receiving from God with prayer and thanksgiving. Note also that while we think of eating as being a three times a day thing, this is in as much as I've been able to find passages about this in scripture, eating really does seem to be a two times a day thing in scripture.

So when scripture does associate prayer and receiving food, it is imagining the two specific times that the family is together. 1 Kings 17 .6 is a good passage on this. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

So yeah, here you have, oh gosh, I forget if this is Elijah or Elisha.

I assume that's Elijah. Yeah, Elijah.

And so you have Elijah being fed morning and evening. This is the typical time for meals that you see in scripture. Yeah, my grandfather grew up only eating. Breakfast and dinner, you know, in societies that are not quite so prosperous as ours.

You don't eat three times a day, you eat morning and evening when you're together with your family. It is both, yeah. Right, yeah, all things are supposed to be received with thanksgiving. Even the day is supposed to be received with thanksgiving.

Food is one of the most tangible things that keeps us going. And so it is, that's why scripture highlights it so frequently, because it's very enjoyable, it is very needed. You know, it's both of those things.

It is, you know, it's one of the, like if you look into the field of what, like hospitality, right, and entertainment, like food is one of the biggest things. You don't usually think of that when you think about entertainment, but really, really food is one of the most enjoyable things that people get to experience, and it's also one of the most needed things.

It's very, it's significant in the life of any person, yes. Yeah, and we're all just like eating soylent every day. Would that be sinning? Yeah, I think there's, yeah, I think that someone who would pursue that kind of efficiency in a way that isn't grateful to God for the way he made food, I think that would be a problem.

That doesn't mean that every time someone, you know, grabs a protein bar that, you know, kind of tastes like cardboard that, you know, that's to be shamed, but yeah, it is, it's not good. It's not good that food not be tasty.

Job describing his affliction in Job 6, 6 says, describing how bad it is because he can't even taste his food. Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt, or is there any taste in the juice of the mallow?

You know, he's very, yeah, he doesn't enjoy life because there's, yeah, because he doesn't, he can't taste things. So, right, if you, yeah, if you're trying to solve world hunger by making everyone eat bug juice or whatever, you know, like that's probably not a God-honoring way of trying to solve world hunger.

Okay, so, yeah, food being enjoyed by family.

Morning and evening,.

The whole day being enjoyed by the family morning and evening. These are things that ought to be received with prayer. Okay, so let's talk about some specifics here. When in the morning. So as early as the whole household can be assembled.

When in the evening, just before one goes to rest. So, right, there are alternatives where you have your day, you get further into your day before because it just feels convenient with the way that you've got things scheduled.

I think that that has a tendency to not really be dedicating the whole day to God, that it is good for the family as soon as possible to dedicate the day to the Lord. Also, a lot of times, there'll be a temptation to do family worship early in the evening so that you can enjoy the rest of your evening without having to worry about, you know, any other to-do items, you know, get that off the checklist.

But is that really, yeah, dedicating the, giving thanks for the whole day to God? If you read through those who, you know, in a lot of this stuff, I want you all to know that these arguments that I'm making and these things that I'm saying, pretty much all of them come from multiple, you know, old sources on family worship.

This is not stuff I'm making up myself, but like a lot of people have said these things. Yeah, this is a proper way of going about it is before the first one goes to rest so that you really are, as a family, giving thanks for the day.

All right, what about if you don't have time? You know, you think, maybe you're thinking, okay, my family worship right now is 30 minutes. If I did this twice a day, that would be a whole hour. How do I, how do I do?

Well, the answer is just make it shorter if you need to make it shorter. You know, there's no reason it has to be 30 minutes long. If you do not have time for that, make it 15 minutes long. Put it at both edges of the day.

It's a very reasonable thing to do. Yeah, what about if the family schedule does not have sufficient overlap for you all to gather? I would say that our immediate thought about that should not be, this is my family schedule.

How do I slot family worship in? What would be to say, well, if God would have families to worship together, what does that mean about whether or not our family schedule is disordered? And I do think a lot of modern families tend towards disordered schedules because the home is not really the center of where the activity is happening.

Everybody's, you know, going out to different places. Ideally, it would be, like, what you see in scripture primarily is the father might be going out quite a bit, but the, you know, the wife and children, servants, et cetera, right, they're stationed at the home in such a way that if he has an odd schedule, it can still revolve around his schedule.

But if you have multiple people who have their own ambitions, their own priorities that would, that are conflicting schedule-wise, right, and there's not, like, a head of household who, that, where everybody's schedule revolves around his, right, then it's very easy to end up in a situation where the schedules don't overlap, right, and you're not able to worship together.

So I would argue that our first impulse should be, if we see that, is to ask, does this indicate some disorder in my household if it is not, if I can't figure out where to fit this in morning and evening?

What about days when there's public worship, like the Lord's Day today? And this is something common, too, is that a lot of people, and honestly, this is something that I, just studying for this Sunday school, was convicted about, is, well, my family's worshiping together in public worship on the Lord's Day, so just skip family worship on Sunday mornings.

But this is not, yeah, there's no, family worship is not a substitute for secret worship, and public worship is not a substitute for family worship. The Westminster Directory of Family Worship says this.

On the Lord's Day, after every one of the family apart and the whole family together have sought the Lord, the master of the family ought to take care that all within his charge repair to the public worship.

So those who authored the Westminster Confession, which later was edited to become the Second London Baptist Confession, are saying that on Sunday mornings, it should be, you should have secret worship, you should have family worship, and you should have public worship.

It should be all three of those. Return, or yeah, well, yeah, I'm not even sure return makes sense since they're going out for the first time in the morning, but yeah, I think it usually means return.

Yeah, you might be right. It might be talking about pairing together. Yeah, once again, maybe. Okay, so yeah, family worship isn't just a six-day-a-week thing either. It's a number day, yes. I do, I do, yeah.

It is, yeah, I think there's definitely room for improvement when it comes to the evening, but I do, especially in the morning, before family worship. Yes, let's see. Yeah, and the Directory of Family Worship doesn't address it explicitly, but there are a few phrases in there that suggest it is assuming that when you think of family worship, you're thinking of morning and evening.

You know, it talks about the prayers being in the morning or the evening. So it seems to be operating with the assumption that you understand that's what it would be. Any questions about this specific section?

Because, like, that's the real practical, you know, how do you put this into practice? Any questions about that? Right, yes, any other questions? Okay, all right, this is also something that has quite the legacy.

I think that our attitude towards church history, there's one tendency that says we should not be bound by human tradition and we should not make that, we should be so skeptical of, or so suspicious of legalism, you know, that we would not take too much guidance from the past and that we'd be like the Pharisees who just say, oh, we've gotta wash our hands before every meal because this is, you know, what people have said that you have to do in order to serve God rightly.

There is, that is one end of the spectrum. However, I do believe that we should be instructed by, well, the other end of the spectrum would be, oh, yes, let's obey everything that they said, like Roman Catholicism does, and, you know, tradition is equal to scripture, right?

Those are like two ends of the spectrum. I do think we should be instructed by previous generations. We should see them as fathers, you know, who are teaching us, and we should give a lot of weight to their conclusions about what is right, and especially in areas where it is likely that we have more blind spots than them.

Okay, this is one of those areas, just given the nature of families today, where we likely have many more blind spots than they do about this particular thing. And this was the golden age of religion for, or Puritan era was the golden age of religion.

That is something to be considered when it comes to worship. You know, they understood worship pretty well, something to consider. So I think that there should be a deference to the saints of the past, especially those who sat from better positions on certain topics like the nature of the family and worship, which is these folks that I'm going to be reading would fall more into the category.

Okay, William Perkins is actually the only Puritan I have down here, but there are a lot of Puritans you can go read who said the same thing. William Perkins is a very early Puritan, came before the Westminster Assembly by about 40 years.

But he was one of the ones that influenced all the others. The morning in which the family coming together in one place is to call upon the name of the Lord before they begin the works of their callings.