You can turn to Psalm 145 again. We're gonna be using it again this afternoon, as we did last week. This is our 43rd sermon now in the Suggested Topics Sermon Series, where you've given us suggestions of sermons to preach. So this is our ninth and final sermon in the category of Christian Living in the Home. And last week we looked at kind of part one of this, and this week we're looking at part two. Last week was the biblical importance of family worship. And I spoke to you about how the very light of nature, before we even have a Bible in our hands or anything, just being creatures on the earth, the very light of nature testifies to us of God's eternal power and divine nature. and that he is one who is worthy to be worshiped and that we ought to worship him. So that's something that we all know innately and that we push away. And for review, let me repeat what the Westminster Confession says about this. Talks to us about how we should worship him daily. And it has a very fine summary in chapter 21. In verse one, this is what we looked at last week, this is his review. It says, the light of nature showeth that there is a God who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is good and doeth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted, and served with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the might. So we're to worship God. and we're to do it in the way that he commands. That's what we're told there. That's what we know. And then chapter 21, paragraph six goes on to insist that God is to be worshiped everywhere in spirit and in truth as in private families daily and in secret, each one by himself, so more solemnly It's more of a formal thing in the public assemblies which are not carelessly or willfully to be neglected or forsaken when God by his providence calleth there unto. The reason it has that part about God's providence is because sometimes we're in a situation where there may not be any worship available to us. Maybe we're in prison for our faith or something like that and we can't go to the public assemblies then. But when God in his providence makes it available to us, then it is our duty and obligation. We looked at various scriptures that show that this is so, and that even that we should hear his word daily, and praise him daily, and pray daily. Just to give you a reminder, like, for instance, when we looked at prayer, Jesus says, when he teaches us to pray, give us this day, not this week, but this day, our daily bread, showing that this is a prayer that's expected every day. Forgive us, and that this day would carry over to the next phrase. This day, forgive us for our debts. And so this is things we looked at last week that the importance of daily family worship and private worship. But the person who requested this topic also asked me to do a sermon about how to do family worship. In other words, looking for some practical guidance. In a way, this sermon could be said to be more of like a lesson than a sermon. But sometimes we have sermons that are more didactic than others. We have that in the scripture as well, ones that are more teaching and that kind of a thing that we're looking at. So I thought it was a very good idea to do something with practical guidance on this. So our topic today I've entitled Practical Guidance for Family Worship. I decided to use the same passage that we used last week, Psalm 145. I kind of waffled around a little bit about what passage to use. But the reason I did is because here we pledge that we will praise God daily. When we sing this psalm, we're saying we're gonna praise you every day. meditate on his mighty, gracious works, and declare these things to the next generation. So you have family worship kind of practice going on. And that we will lift up believing prayer to him as well, as a daily thing that we do. So here's the word of God, Psalm 145, one through 21. A praise of David. I will extol you, my God, O King, and I will bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and I will praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds and I will declare your greatness. They shall utter the memory of your great goodness and shall sing of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all in his tender mercies are over all his works. All your works shall praise you, O Lord, and your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and talk of your power, to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord upholds all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look expectantly to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all of his ways, gracious in all his works. The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear him. He also will hear their cry and save them. The Lord preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy. My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh shall bless His holy name forever and ever. There we end the reading of God's word. Thanks be to God for this precious word. What glorious words these are about such a glorious God. Last week, we saw that the head of the home is responsible to insist that this God be worshiped in his home each day. As for me and my house, Joshua said, we will serve the Lord. And he is to lead as he is able or appoint someone else to do. If for some reason he's not, he can get someone else to do it, such as one of his sons or his wife. Or if you're a single mother or have an unbelieving husband, then you can lead the children. We also noted that there are three elements of worship that are included. First, there is the singing of praise to our great God. Second, there is the reading and expounding of his word, declaring his wonderful works, what he has done, and the things that he has commanded. And then third, there is prayer, calling on the name of the Lord and seeking him. I thought it was interesting, the songs that were chosen today, you know, we had the first one that was so much about the praise of God, Psalm 98. And then the second one that was chosen was so much about the word, you know, let your ordinances help, like bring your truth and word to us in a very, very helpful way. And then the third one is a prayer, so it was kind of a praise one, too, but it's just interesting that these were all so much oriented in that way today. So we're gonna consider how to go about doing these three things. Praise, in our homes, praise, reading, expounding the word, and prayer. And after that, we'll consider a few other matters related to the conducting of family worship. Before we begin, I want to stress one thing that we often lose sight of, though. It is the most basic thing of all. And that is that when we worship at home, we need to be conscious of the fact that we're coming before God. We need to be conscious of that when we worship in public, too. You say, well, of course. But you know, we're in family worship. We're not just there to talk to the kids about God. We're gathered to meet with God. We're gathered to do business with the living God, and we look for Him to meet with us. Fathers, you need to remind your family about this often, because it is one of the things that goes first when we decline spiritually. We start to have worship that is really not toward God. It's just a thing that we're doing. And we talk about the music and we talk about this and that. But we're not really engaged with God. Where we're being convicted about things that we need to be convicted about. Where we're being elevated in our spirit about his greatness as we see who he is. It will transform your worship and your family to be mindful of the presence of the living God. you are presenting your praise to him, before him who reigns over all. You are hearing his voice through the reading of the word. This is not something you can just ignore, because it comes from the most high God. You are speaking to him, to him, when you pray. Now, I have to say, In preparing this message and thinking about these things, I have been personally convicted about this myself, that too often, that has not been what I have emphasized with my family. That has not been the thing that I really was so conscious of. Not kept my family in remembrance of these things as much, nearly as much. as I should have, but I'm very encouraged to be able to see that. When you see something, even though you were wrong, when you see it from God, He's being merciful to you and it's refreshing because now you can go and do better by His grace. He points things out to us so we can change. So let's now look at the three elements of family worship separately, and I'll refer to them, you know, praising God, hearing from God, and talking to God, praying to Him. So let's first look at singing praise to God. God's people have always been a singing people. Why is that? It's because God has put a new song in our heart. If we know anything about what we've been saved from, we have occasion to sing, if we grasp that. He has given us something wonderful to sing about. He has revealed his own glory to us through Jesus Christ. We see what God is like in the way that he's revealed him. And the son said, when he was here, he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. who He is, how He walked, and what He did show us so much about God. The saving work that He carried out, the cross reveals God in all eternity to us. I think we could say more than anything else that here we see everything about God coming together, His wrath, His judgment, His holiness, His mercy, His love, His purity, His wisdom, His power, all of it comes together. in the cross, and we will look back at the cross in all eternity, praising our God. So he is the one who created us and created the world. Jesus is. He is the one who spoke to our fathers by the prophets in the Old Testament. He is the one who redeemed us from our sin. He is the face of God revealed to us as creatures in the world. When we see God's majesty and goodness and power and holiness and mercy and wisdom and grace, His justice and His judgments, His love, His truth. We have great reason to sing a song. to praise him for these things. We praise him for who he is and we praise him for what he has done. That's what Psalm 145 talks about, doesn't it? His greatness and majesty and all that, and then that he's tender toward us and he cares for us and he feeds his creatures and all of these things. So the scriptures often exhort us to sing praise to him. A lot of the Psalms, like we sang today, say, oh, sing a new song to the Lord. or come before His presence with singing. We are given a book of songs, a book of praise, right in the middle of our Bibles. They're called psalms, and they're called hymns, and they're called spiritual songs, and we're instructed to sing them before the Lord our God. These are divinely inspired praises that beautifully declare His excellence and that speak of His glorious works. They include prayers and supplications and confessions of sin as well. So there's all kinds of material here. The early church fathers uniformly testify that these were the songs that they used to praise God in public worship in the church. We also use them then privately when we gather before the Lord. Some people are hesitant to sing because they're not good at singing. But you know the only way to become proficient at something is what? To do it. To practice it. You know, you would not know how to walk today if when you were a little child, you didn't practice. Because you kept falling down, you'd try to stand up, and then you'd wobble, and then you'd fall back down, and then you'd get up again. How did you learn to walk? You kept on doing it. You learned how to walk. It is true that you may not have it in you to be a star basketball player ever. You may not have the height for it. I don't think I have the height for that. You may not have a body that could ever be a marathon runner. And you may not be able to be an opera singer. But there are some people that are not able to walk. at all. And there's some people that are not able to walk very well for various reasons. But the point is that you ought to do what you can. And if you don't work at it, you're not going to do anything. You'll never get off the ground. So there are many things that are available to help you with your singing. a psalter for one thing that will give you songs put to meter that you can sing that way. You can go to psalter.org and find all the tunes there. You can look up every tune that's in this psalter and you can listen to them and sing along with them and you can begin to learn to sing. You can take voice lessons or ask someone in the church to help you. As with anything, you put a little effort and you can make a lot of progress. And if presently you can only struggle along a bit, then you can always just read the Psalms out loud together until you learn to sing them. The most important thing is that we direct our praises to God. In Ephesians 5.18 it says to be filled with the Spirit, and then in verse 19 it says, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. Now, this seems to be speaking of what we do at home as much as it is speaking to what we do at church. It's just talking about praising God where we are. And notice the emphasis, though, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. And see, this is what I was talking about before we got into the individual elements, that it needs to be before God. The problem is that we sing without even thinking about him. We only think about the music or maybe we're going a little further than that. We're analyzing the song a little bit and the words that we're singing. But do we consciously, what did it say? Make melody in your heart to the Lord. That's an interesting phrase, isn't it? What does that mean? Make melody in your heart to the Lord. It literally is pluck the strings of your heart. This is a very interesting phrase. So you're making music. from your heart from within that you are praises that God hears the most are not what comes out of our lips, but what comes out of our heart. Now the lips need to be joined with don't say, oh, I just do it in my heart. No, no, we're we're creatures that have bodies. We need to use our bodies to worship God, but we also need to use our spirit. It's not just the lovely sound of a voice, but it's us. praising God, having communion with him in our praise. And fathers, I think it's helpful for you to point out what the psalm being sung says about the Lord sometimes and to remind your family that you're to make melody in your heart to him. We're telling him and each other how great he is, what great things he has done, how he is holy and gracious. how wise and powerful He is, how much good He has done for us, how He deals with all of His enemies in justice and righteousness, how He restores us and protects us and provides for us, forgives us, helps us, teaches us, gives us a song in the night. All of you, be sure that you do this because God is worthy and it will do you much good To take delight and pleasure in praising him, if you do not do this, then your faith will be very dry and barren if you are not one who praises the Lord and confess how wrong you have been when you have sinned against him. That's another thing we do when we come before him and we sing songs about sin, like, you know, Psalm 51, for example. Remind your wife and your children that singing praise gives him the honor which is his due. The universe is a warped and twisted place, and so are we, when we don't give God the honor and praise that He is due. We're out of kilter. Everything is out of what it ought to be. It sets us right and gives us peace and joy in our souls when we rightly praise the King of kings and the Lord of lords. It's a good thing. to sing praises to the Lord. Psalm 45, 2. Every day I will bless you and I will praise your name forever and ever. Now, the word, the scriptures in family worship, reading of the word, expounding the word, that's the next thing we look at. Whenever you come to God's word, whether in public, personal, or family worship, you're coming to hear what God himself says. We live in an evil day when people want to base what they believe upon what they feel in their heart rather than what God says in his word. They have no fear of God. So they disregard God and then they make up something. If they hear one of his commandments, they don't look at them. The commandment is something that they absolutely must do. They look at it as kind of a recommendation that if I feel like that's a good thing, then I'll do that. But if I don't feel like it's good, it's really just like Adam and Eve in the garden, isn't it? That's when it got started. You know, don't eat this fruit. Why not? I think it looks good. I want to eat it. I'm going to eat it. Right? That's the problem. They don't feel like it. It doesn't suit them. You could just ignore it. We're talking about God here. It's his word that we're receiving. It should not be like that. We need to receive the Bible as God's Word. We need to treat it with the highest esteem as something sacred and not to be tampered with, opposed or ignored. We need to yearn for the Word, to understand it. Think about it, to have God actually deign to speak to us. Oracles of God, I talked about that last week. You have the oracles of God. People say, oh, there's an oracle. I heard there was an oracle over in that cave over there. They want to go and find out. No, we have the oracles of God in our Bible. It applies to us. We need to apply it to our families. We need to believe it. We need to obey it because it's God speaking and it is very wrong for us to not believe and obey him. So when you come to the word, either to instruct your family or as an individual, you need to read it and think about what it means and how it applies. As Psalm 119, 105 says, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. So you want to be led by the word instead of by the opinions of the world, the suggestions of Satan, or the dictates of your own heart. You don't wanna just be wrapped up in whatever the world's doing and that's what you do. are wrapped up in whatever your heart says. This is why we are exhorted to sit at wisdom's gates every day to hear from our God and to be corrected and guided by Him. To get at the meaning and purpose of the passage, then, that you're reading, see, as you're taking the scripture, leading family worship, how do you help your family? You've got to get at the meaning and purpose of each passage. What is the telos, the goal, the end of that passage that is before you for you and your family? It's very helpful if you ask questions of the text. So, we have this in our family worship guide that we did a few years ago, and I'm disappointed that it wasn't on the table, but I did send you an email, an e-copy of that, that you can look at. But, try to get some more printed up soon. But ask of the passage. This is what we have in there. Is there something here to praise God about? This is whether you're reading privately or in family worship. Just think about, is there something to praise God about? Something revealed here about His glory, His wisdom, His wrath, His mercy, His power, His majesty, whatever. We're looking at the passage. What's here? What is it saying about God that we could praise Him for? Something to trust God for. It's the next thing, and ask Him for it. Is there a promise here? I will be with you always, okay? That's a promise, we lay hold of that. Or something for your family, a promise to your family. Or a promise to the church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. We'll be able to go forward, conquering for Jesus Christ all the kingdoms of the adversary. Or something to repent of is the next thing. To avoid or watch out for. Something to ask him to forgive me or my family for. And something that we need his help with. Okay, so when I read God's word, I see stuff that shows wrong, convicts me of my sin. And it's the same thing in our families. We need to engage with that. Something to put into practice, a command or an example to imitate. We've been looking at a lot of examples in our Hebrews 11 study, haven't we, and seeing examples of people. We read the Old Testament narratives that, as I mentioned this morning, they're given for our admonition. We read them for our profit and benefit. And then we have direct commands. And we have things that we can make specific applications to our family. When we have a command and we think, you know, it says, honor your father and mother. We can talk to our children about that. And we can talk about ourselves and how we should be honorable as the one who is the head of the home. Maybe you read about the shipwreck at Malta. and you see the hospitality of the people there. And then you can talk about, you know, we haven't been really caring for the people around us and showing hospitality to them, and we need to think about how we're doing that. You bring these things to your children as you do family worship. You tell your family, you know, let's exercise hospitality better. Is there something then also in this passage to give thanks for? Does it tell of the works that God has done? Creating us, redeeming us, providing things to us. Whatever it is, it brings that up. And we then highlight that. You see, we want to apply it. We're not just reading about something that some guy, Abraham, did a long time ago. We're reading things that are to be brought to our home. Things that apply to us that we respond to God in. So those are questions, again, in the Family Worship Guide. It will also help you when you're using the word of God in family worship to prepare. And of course, different people have different abilities and different understandings of the scripture and different ways of preparing. There's all kinds of flexibility here. We're not making some kind of rules here, but just some suggestions. Some men will read the same passage that they're doing in family worship and their own personal devotions before God and personal time of prayer and Bible study. You can get good study Bibles or commentaries that you can use to help you understand the meaning of the words and things like that and maybe that help with, you know, application or things like that, the history behind the passage to get a better understanding. But, you know, if you're unable to find time to prepare in advance, then just read a passage from the Bible when you sit with your children and say a few words that apply to your family. It doesn't have to be a big deal. It is a big deal because of what you're doing, but you don't have to be overwhelmed about doing it. You just are taking God's word and you're bringing it to bear on the people that are in front of you. There are also good devotional guides that you can use. Sometimes if you're just starting out, especially these are very helpful. One example of one that we get the publication reform perspective, if you go on their website, they have a daily a daily devotional thing where you can go to that and if you're having a hard time getting those things together, you can use that to help you. You can use it in different ways, but even when you do use something like that, you want to be able to still make sure that you speak to your own family about it, or that you engage them with what you're looking at, that it's not just a thing. I remember when I was a kid, sometimes we'd just have a reading or something, and I'd be thinking about everything else. It didn't connect with me. It should have connected with me more than it did. But I didn't make the connection, and if it wasn't made for me, then I was zoned out. If you ask me afterward, what did we read about? I don't know. I don't remember. So there's other worship guides, too, like that. The website Monergism, they have a whole lot of older ones, like Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, that kind of stuff that can be helpful as devotional guides. And they've got a whole page of them. I gave you links to that. It will be on the electronic version that I sent out. TableTalk is another good one that has some good content. There's others, but devotionals like these are especially helpful when you're having difficulties getting it together. It's much, much better to do something like this than say, I'm not even going to do this. But at some point, you know, you want to be sure that you bring these things to your family. I think it's really good to just read the scriptures and bring them to bear. But whatever you do, be sure that you engage your family with God's Word. You know, another thing to do, kind of referred to this already, but is ask them questions about the passage. There's catechesis, you know. Ask them not just the memorized questions of the catechism, but it also involves asking questions as you're teaching in that kind of a context. And have questions that are devoted to the youngest one and questions devoted to the older ones. Get them thinking about what the passage says and thinking about how it applies and how to apply the word so that they can do it. in their own life. Get them to talk about the passage and ask them to explain it. What does this mean? What is this saying? Ask them the questions that we looked at before for using to interpret the Bible. When they have to answer, it'll clear up some of their laziness, right? They have to think and engage. Your goal is to respond to God's word and get them to respond to God's word. Okay, then the third thing, prayer. Prayer is the third element that we want to include in our daily personal and family worship. See, there's things missing that are in our public worship that are not in our private worship. We're not to do baptism, and we're not to do the Lord's Supper in our home. Those are church ordinances. But prayer and praise and reading the word, those are all things that are to be done daily according to the scriptures. So prayer's the third thing. And who should pray at family worship? Well, fathers should certainly lead in prayer. They should set an example of prayer that includes the different aspects of prayer, such as praise, thanksgiving, and humble petitions to God. I'll say more about things to include in prayer in just a moment. But this is not essential, but I think it's really helpful and beneficial to have the rest of the family pray. direct them specifically to pray for each other in the home. And for the youngest ones, you can line out the prayers. You can, like people do when they do their wedding vows and the minister says something and they repeat it, do a prayer like that where you're guiding them along in prayer when they're a little child and they can't put it all together yet themselves. You help the youngest ones and the older ones to learn to pray. Now, what should you include in your prayer? Well, again, the Family Worship Guide has the following list. It says, prayers should include confession as to their unworthiness to come before God, the person who's praying, their unworthiness to come before God in prayer and worship, and an earnest desire that he would give us a true prayerful spirit. Now, I don't know about you, but I often find it hard to focus in prayer. on God and my mind goes all over the place, somebody else is praying, my mind's off here and there, and also when I'm praying by myself, I'll find myself off in a totally different place with my thoughts, just completely, I'm not even praying anymore, I'm gone. and have to come back again. And so, you know, we have these challenges that we have to deal with. But, so, this is saying, ask God for a prayerful spirit. That he'll give us a real earnestness and a desire to be crying out to God and to be actually connecting with God when we pray. The second thing is confession of sin, both individual and family, and in such a way as to bring about true humiliation. So it shouldn't be a rote thing. Confession sometimes should be specific things, like maybe you've had a lot of hostility in your home. Confess that to God. Say, Lord, we have had a lot of hostility in our home. Please have mercy on us, deliver us, forgive us, help us. Real stuff we're talking about here. We're talking about real life things. It means that you should try to see that sin the way God sees it, too. You don't just confess it, but you look at it in a more full-orbed way. Confession means saying the same thing that God says, and not just saying the same thing, but actually seeing it in the same way that God sees it. That's what we want to do when we confess our sins. That's what we want to do when we confess God. We want to see God the way God sees God, the way, what is true. Okay, and then the third thing that we should have in our prayers is the earnest spirit-led pouring out of the soul's cry to God for forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ. Pardon for sin is such an excellent thing, isn't it? I mean, we're set free when we're forgiven. And we want to ask God to forgive us when we see that we have come short. Fourth, thanksgiving to God for his many mercies to his people. To themselves particularly, what has he done for you? And especially for his love in Christ and for the light of the gospel. Yeah, especially we thank God for giving us salvation through Jesus Christ. Fifth, prayer for such particular spiritual and temporal blessings as are needed at the time, whether in the morning or the evening. You know, maybe somebody's having surgery that day. Maybe you're looking for work or, you know, whatever it might be, or you pray for other people. People are sick, you know, or people are in health, prosperity, adversity, wherever you are, you pray related to that. This is where informal family worship has a specialness about it that you don't have in more formal public worship, where you're actually praying very much in things that are right there around you in your home that are before you that day. And then number six, Oh, wait, I didn't do five. Five, prayer for particular spiritual and temporal blessings as are needed at the time. Oh, no, I did say that, okay. Number six, intercessory prayer for the Church of Christ in general, for all churches where Reformed doctrine and practice are evident, and for their local church in particular, so for our own church. for all who suffer for the sake of Christ, the persecuted people, for all in positions of authority in government, those in the administration of justice, ministers, the whole body of the local congregation, as well as for their neighbors. So don't forget to pray for the public institutions, you know, don't forget to pray for the civil magistrate, the church, the nation, things like that, as well as the neighbors, people that are all around you, relatives, whatever they may be. Sometimes we're real heavy on one kind of prayer and real light on the other. You know, I've been in places where they only pray for the big institution things, and they don't pray for, like, what's happening right in front of them in their home. And other people, it's all about what's happening right there, and it's like there's nothing else out there to pray for. We need to have a completeness, a fullness of both. We're interceding to the living God. Pray for the church especially, too, for God to bless her. And then, closing with an earnest desire that God would be glorified in the coming of the kingdom of His Son, and in doing of His will, with confidence that their prayers have been heard and that what they have asked according to his will shall be done. So we express our thanksgiving that we were able to pray and ask God to actually answer those prayers. Trust him to answer them. A few other important matters about family worship. We could have done a lot more here, but teach your children to love it. Teach them that this is a special time that is set apart for God. Explain that one kind of behavior is appropriate on the playground. Another kind of behavior is appropriate at the dinner table. and yet another in worship. And I used to tell our children all the time, you know, life is very interesting. We have different things that we do. And it would be really boring if it was all the same. I mean, what if we just sat at the table and ate all day? You'd get kind of old after a while. But we have other things that we do. There's the playground. But what if you were just at the playground all day long? You have other things to engage you, like coming and eating. Would you want to be on the playground and never eat? And then worship. We go to worship God, and that's a different kind of activity than being at the playground. And sometimes we don't like to tell children this in our day, because we have this thing of what I was talking about today, of my personal feelings are so sacred. So if I don't want this, instead of telling a child, no, you're not to be like that now. You're to be like this. We don't want to do that. But that's what we need to do. And they'll learn the fullness of life when they learn to control themselves. God does that with his people. Isn't it interesting, like, when he talks about the Day of Atonement? He says, you're to afflict your souls. You're to be sorrowful on the Day of Atonement. And then other days, he says, you're to rejoice with feasting and thanksgiving. He tells you what kind of attitude or what kind of response you're to have in it. So tell them that it is their duty to be joyful and reverent before the Lord in family worship. And if they're not, then clear their guilty conscience by chastening them. They know they're not doing right, so you chasten them, and it clears their guilty conscience as you come before God and ask Him for forgiveness. And I've been shocked, I remember being shocked when I was first learning to discipline my children, how their actual attitude would change when they were corrected. It was like, you'd say, you should love your mother, or whatever. And you chase them and then they come back and they love her and they really do love her. It's like it's heartfelt because they knew they were wrong. They knew that they shouldn't have been like. So if they have a bad attitude in their worship, they know they're doing wrong. And don't don't play games like they don't. They do know. And you address them and it sets them free. Again, we live in a day where feelings are sacred, but they're not. God is the one that's sacred. Our feelings must conform to him. In Parents I Cannot Urge Enough, Philippians 2.14 says, do all things without complaining and disputing. So there you go. If this is enforced from sincere parents who also do not complain about worship, then their children really will learn to rejoice when they come before the Lord. When they do not, you know, then again, we correct them. Happy children are the ones who have freed up consciences. Unhappy children are the children whose parents leave them in guilty bondage with no foreseeable way for them to escape. Let me say, if your children complain, if you find them complaining a lot, one of the first things to do is see if you're complaining a lot. Because almost always that's where it comes from. Very often they learned it from you. They still need to be corrected about it, but you need to, in correcting them, say, I've led a bad example here, so I'm asking God to forgive me too. So you correct both of you. But it doesn't excuse them, it's just that, yeah, I'm part of the problem here. You ask God to forgive you as well as to forgive them. Okay, so that's the thing, teach your children to love it. Then a second thing, be sure to do it. Remember the story of Martha and Mary in the Bible? Martha complained because Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet to learn of him while Martha was busy with meal preparations and things. Martha complained to Jesus about Mary leaving her, Martha, to do all the work. But Jesus commended Mary for sitting at his feet to learn of him. He said, Luke 10, 41 through 42, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. Let's just pause there a minute. Let's not just think about getting supper ready. Let's think about our whole life. Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. I'm all worried about how I'm going to pay the bills. I'm worried about this and this and this and this and this. And so I can't do family worship because I'm so worried about all these things. Is that a right way to be? I can't do personal worship because I'm worried about all this stuff. Jesus said one thing is needed and Mary has chosen the good part which will not be taken away from her. You need to worship God privately and if you have family and family and publicly at church, don't let family worship be crowded out by other activities. We can make them so important. We act like this is this activity is non-negotiable. Family worship that whatever it can come and go. Doesn't matter. Sure, work is important. School is important. Music lessons are good. Sports are good. They're good things to do. But worship is far more important. Every day will I bless you. Every day will I sit at the gates and hear wisdom. If we do not live for God, then we live for nothing of consequence. If you don't live for God, you live for nothing of consequence. Nothing is important compared with God. What you do with your work and your school and all these other things, your recreations, are all done properly to the glory of God, or they're done for nothing. If we're not mindful of God, if we're not living for him, then it's all vain. It's all empty, vanity of vanities. But of course, there are times when you're hindered from family worship. and from private worship. But don't let what is the exception become the dominant pattern. That's the problem. Sure, things can happen, but when neglect becomes the dominant pattern, then you're to be blamed for neglecting the Lord and for hiding the truth from your children. If it's the dominant pattern, it's not just something that slipped in when it becomes the pattern. It's the pattern. So better to have less income, better to have less activities, less sports, less whatever it is, than to neglect the good part. What Jesus says is the good part that will not be taken away from you. I hope that all this has been helpful for you. One of the best ways to learn about family worship as well as we wrap up here is to watch other people. Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. So we watch others who have been doing it for a while. We see how they do it. That can be very, very helpful for us. Get ideas from each other. Talk about it. Have people over to your house. Get their input as they see you leading family worship. But again, most important is just to do it. You learn from doing, and look to God to help you, and you'll get better at it as the years go on, and God will guide you and prosper you. Be sure that you're coming before Him, as we began saying, as we saw through the whole thing. It's before God, that's what makes it special. We're meeting with God to praise Him for His majesty and glory, to hear His word, and to bring our prayers and supplications before him. So please stand and let's ask him to help us. Lord God, we come before your face now to pray to you. We come, Lord, with thanksgiving that you have made us not like the animals who roam about in the woods looking for their food and so on and who, you know, get in a fight with another animal or run away from another animal or whatever. And that's about all there is to it. They mate and do different things like that. But Father, here we are made in your image and we're able to know you. We're able to worship you and we act like beasts. when we don't worship you, and when we don't call on your name daily, when we don't seek your face and come before you humbly, pray to you, praise you, hear your word. So we pray, Lord, that you would help us with these things. We pray, Lord, that you would give us the desire for this, and that that desire would become stronger even as we do it. And Father, we pray that you would help us to have wisdom in the doing of it. For we know, Lord, that sometimes we do feel like we're not doing very well with it, and we can become discouraged and get overwhelmed. But we pray that we would know, Lord, that you're not giving us a grade about how skilled we are, but you're looking for us to come before your face with a humble heart. and to truly connect with you as we bow before you and we pray to you and we sing praises to you. So we pray that you would help us, Lord, and that you would guide us along with these things. We thank you so much for calling us to do this. May we hear your call. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. May the Lord give you increased more and more, you and your children. May you be blessed by the Lord who made heaven and earth. Amen.