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 12:27-33
27 “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
28 “Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
29 So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.”
30 Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.
31 “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
32 “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”
33 But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.
Still talking to Andrew and Philip about the Greek pilgrims wanting to see Him, Jesus claimed that He came to this hour, the time of His crucifixion, to die and produce much fruit (cf. verse 24). He asked the Father to glorify His own name, and the Father audibly affirmed Jesus’s petition for the sake of onlookers.
Jesus made a promise to do something that would accompany His sacrifice. First, the ruler of this world would be cast out. In Jesus’s context, that either meant Rome, Herod, or Satan. John isn’t clear, here, probably because his immediate audience already had the correct assumption. Because the New Testament seems to speak this way of Satan (cf. Ephesians 2:2; 2 Corinthians 4:4), I think John is most likely referring to Satan here. In conjunction with Christ’s crucifixion, Satan would be cast out. He would be deposed and lose whatever influence he had previously.
Second, Jesus would be lifted up and draw all people, those Greeks included, to Himself. Satan would essentially be bound, like John described later in Revelation 20. Jesus would claim victory, and the Gospel would go out unimpeded.
This was the type of death Jesus was about to die. Not only does John’s account here give teeth to his words in Revelation 20, it also provides encouragement for us. Satan has been cast out. Jesus won completely at the cross. We have the fullness of victory in Christ today—in a meaningful way.
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