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.
John 5:1-15
1 After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes.
3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters;
4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.]
5 A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He *said to him, “Do you wish to get well?”
7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
8 Jesus *said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.”
9 Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.
Now it was the Sabbath on that day.
10 So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.”
11 But he answered them, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’ ”
12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk’?”
13 But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place.
14 Afterward Jesus *found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”
15 The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
After Jesus healed the paralytic at Bethesda, His invitation was simple—Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.
We really like to aggrandize our callings in Christ because we tend to think so highly of ourselves. Christ brings healing to us, and we imagine He wants us to go be evangelists or preachers. These works are not Christ’s primary calling on anyone’s life. Go. Sin no more.
We also tend to think that a gospel call involves forgiveness for our sin without a call to stop sinning. The gospel is freedom from the power of sin. Jesus says it here. Sin no more. This is the calling on our lives, and it seems to me that there is a whole lot about the redemption of the world through Christ’s people wrapped up in sinning no more.
It doesn’t come without warning, “…lest a worse thing come upon you.” There are other things like this elsewhere in the Bible. If we taste and see the glory of God but don’t actually turn from our ways, I think we are worse off because we refuse to actually follow Jesus. We wanted the benefits without the responsibility. We didn’t actually want life to change for the better. The invitation to kill our sin is part of the gospel invitation.
Today’s question from the New City Catechism:
Q- Who is the redeemer?
A- The only Redeemer is the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Timothy 2:5 says,
5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
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