What is family worship? (Click the arrow to the left)
As Christians, particularly Christian men, we are responsible to lead our households with strength and resolve in the ways of Christ. Leading our families in devotions and family worship is one way to lead our families, raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Jesus Christ (cf. Deuteronomy 6:7; Ephesians 6:4).
In my house, we do morning and evenings. In the morning after we eat breakfast together, we all have our quiet times. We read our Bibles seperately and journal what we see. In the evenings before bed, we talk about what we saw in our morning Bible reading, I share my insight from my own devotional time, we ask questions from the New City Catechism, we sing a couple worship songs together, and then we pray as a family. Family worship doesn’t have to look like this. It may look different for every household, but I want to invite you to join me in leading our families well. Every weekday on this blog, I want to provide a guide for fathers to lead their families in some form of family worship. If your household doesn’t have a father, I believe the responsibility falls to the mother. Design a routine that works for your family, but be intentional about leading in the only way that matters instead of getting too caught up with the affairs of this world. Every Christian man is the pastor of his home. I believe the most important thing we can do for our children is (1) lead them in the home and (2) be faithful to the church as a family. As the family goes, so goes the nation. Our job as pastors to our family matters.
Today is Veterans’ Day. Thank you to all the veterans who served in the United States military, preserving our liberties and opposing injustice in the world. May God bless you forever.
John 4:27-38
27 At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?”
28 So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and *said to the men,
29 “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?”
30 They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”
33 So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?”
34 Jesus *said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
35 “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.
36 “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.
37 “For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’
38 “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
Jesus fled from some hostile Pharisees and rested His body at the Well of Jacob. A woman happened by and a gospel conversation ensued. Jesus was not trying to produce a crowd, but a crowd came. As the crowd came, Jesus’s disciples tried to get Him to eat. Essentially, Jesus responded by telling them there was an opportunity that shouldn’t be squandered.
Look at the fields! Look at all the people gathering. They are ready to receive the gospel. The fields are ripe for harvest. Jesus clearly explained what He meant. His disciples, in this case, are reaping what they did not sow or labor for. Others labored, and the Samaritans were ready. All the disciples had to do was share the good news and offer an invitation to come.
When we read the whole biblical story, I think it’s clear that God has been laboring to build His own kingdom since the beginning. We see that explicitly in verses like Jeremiah 33:2 and Isaiah 9:7. The Lord’s zeal will accomplish building His own kingdom on the earth. God created the earth so that He would establish it. In the New Testament, God the Son sends His disciples to reap what they did not sow. In practicing evangelism, then, they have fellowship with the one who actually did all the work in preparing the field—God.
This realization is not insignificant for us when we think about evangelism in the modern day. Because we think more highly of ourselves than we ought, we think it falls to us to labor in the fields as if the preparation and growth depends on us. It does not. No pastor or personality, no evangelist or teacher, can change the fact that God alone gives the growth (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:6). If we reap anything in evangelism, it is because God, by His zeal, has made the fields ripe for harvest.
Yet, we create churches and ministries that are primarily evangelistic—such that we measure our success by the number of people in the pew or number of baptisms in a year. We effectively try to take work God has reserved for Himself on as if God needs us to build His kingdom for Him. We need to humble ourselves and loose our ministries of this success syndrome; I fear it is actually killing our churches. God doesn’t need us.
Yet, God sends us to practice evangelism—not because the salvation of the world depends on us. It doesn’t. It only depends on Christ. In participating in Christ’s work with all the saints—past, present, and future—we enter into their labors, have fellowship with them, and receive our wages as laborers in Christ’s fields.
The work of evangelism is about being with Christ, not bolstering our numbers. For, how can we have fellowship with Christ if we are not with Him as He works? This is a higher view of evangelism than we are used to in the West. It is a higher view of God, and a humbler view of self. It ultimately brings more satisfaction in our kingdom labors.
Today’s question from the New City Catechism:
Q- What is sin?
A- Sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, not being or doing what he requires in his law.
1 John 3:4 says,
4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
Have a question about today’s devotional?
Alex Southern Baptist Chapel 
Leave a comment