You're listening to Resurrection Life with Pastor Nathan Trice. Bringing our children up in the instruction of the Lord Jesus. That's the subject that we've begun to consider in this larger series on Christian parenting and welcome back friends. So glad to have you with me. I began the subject of parental instruction by considering that least intentional, perhaps, but most pervasive kind of context in our homes for it. I was thinking with you about Deuteronomy 6, and I was looking with you at the culture of conversation, as I called it, that should be found in each of our homes as Christians, out of which so many teaching opportunities arise. But now, however, I want to focus on the much more deliberate efforts that we rightly make in teaching our children. I certainly would not want to leave the impression that teaching is merely a matter of serendipity. Perhaps there are some parents who have this view, they teach their children just when the opportunities, as it were, fall in their lap. But beyond that, they don't have a plan or a strategy for something more intentional and comprehensive of teaching their children. But my friends, I think it's fair to say the things in our lives that we really regard as of utmost importance, we don't tend to leave to mere spontaneity. You devise disciplines in your life. to ensure that you have the opportunities that you need. For example, to eat and to drink, to supply the needs of our bodies in that way. You may be like me, always up for a snack, but you don't leave those most basic needs of your bodies to mere spontaneity. You have meals in your life and you plan to provide for your needs in those set times. So it seemed to me that this was a perfect opportunity in this larger series on Christian parenting to talk about one of my favorite subjects, one of the subjects I think is most important to Christian parenting, and that is having a discipline in your home of family worship. Some of you might call it family devotions. Some might speak of family prayers or family Bible study. But folks, I want to talk about that subject today. I'm going to have a lot to say on it. You might want to think of this as two podcasts in one, because I'm going to talk first about the why of family worship, and then I want to talk about the how. of family worship. I want to encourage and motivate you towards this discipline in your homes, this spiritual discipline in your homes, and I also want to give some practical suggestions and some guidance in the doing of family worship. So let's start with the why of family worship. And the first thing I want to say in this connection is that the compelling reasons for having this pattern of family worship in our homes are far greater than just the opportunity for parental instruction. Actually, I want to say that everything we believe about the nature of a Christian family calls for having a pattern of family worship. First reason that I want to submit to you why we should pursue family worship in our homes is, well, quite simply, because according to the Scriptures, we may. I think the ultimate reason for Gathering our families for worship is the same ultimate reason for personally pursuing devotions to Christ in prayer and reading of the Bible, because the Bible tells us we may. My mind went to one of the first and clearest examples of family worship in the Scriptures, And that's Genesis chapter 8. It's the account of Noah and his family, and I'll pick up where Noah has just left the ark, the place of refuge and safety from the judgment of God on the earth, and he's entered into this new world, cleansed by the waters of the flood. We read in verse 20, Soon as he comes out with all the creatures in the ark with him, then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done." Now that account is Impressive to us for all kinds of reasons, Noah's first instinct is to worship God after his deliverance with his family from God's judgment. But I'm just pointing out that this is something that Noah and his family, no doubt, would have done. They are worshiping God as a family. I'm also aware, of course, that they are, as it turns out, the only human beings on the planet to engage in worship. But I just want to point out, to remind you, that there was a time when the only worship in the world was family worship, and God makes very clear that he's pleased to be approached by families in this way. We could look at Abraham's life, Genesis 12, or Isaac, Genesis 26, or Jacob, Genesis 35, each case, they're worshiping God as heads of their families. In the days of Moses, we could remember that the Passover, at least in its original institution, was a form of family worship. Sometimes 2 Samuel 6 verse 20 is pointed to as an example of David in a day in which there is something much bigger than family worship. The worship of God there in Jerusalem, yet in that passage he returns from worship to bless his household, a reference to some kind of family devotions in David's home. Terry Johnson is a Presbyterian pastor in Savannah, Georgia, and he's written a book called The Family Worship Book, and I commend it to you. I'll be referencing it a couple times, and he just makes this comment in that book. The original church was the family, and the original worship was family worship. Did you know that you can do this, friends? Did you know not only that you can do this, that you can gather your families in little worship services in your home, but there is this biblical precedent for it and pattern of God being pleased to receive his people as they come and worship him as families. Now there may be some in our day who would actually take hold of this principle and elevate the worship of the family, or by the family of God, over the worship of the Church. There may be some that would suggest that all worship should still be family worship, that there's no need to assemble with other Christians to make up congregations of the Lord Jesus Christ, and folks, there is absolutely no interest on my part in giving any credence to that at all. I'll just quote Psalm 87 verse 2, as a passing refutation of that notion, the Lord loves the gates of Zion. It's a reference to the temple more than all the dwelling places of Jacob, a reference to the places of family worship. And there's nothing that I want to say today that is intended in any way to undermine the supremacy of corporate worship, gathered worship of God's people together in this New Testament era, wherever their places of worship may be assembled. But folks, this same verse that speaks of the primacy of corporate worship, Psalm 87-2, also does encourage us that God loves both. He does love the gates of Zion as well as the dwelling places of Jacob. And so one of the most basic things I could say by way of encouragement to you to gather your families for family worship is that, according to the scriptures, we may. It's glorifying to God to do so, like all worship is. He's pleased to receive it. And whatever the benefits we get out of it, which I'll be returning to, the fundamental reason to do it is because God is worthy of our worship. I make an appeal to my Presbyterian hearers, particularly my friends at Resurrection Presbyterian Church. Doesn't it make sense that we would want to worship God as families, as households, when we have such a right emphasis on his blessings to us, not just individually, but as families? I reviewed this early in this series. As Presbyterians, we believe that God blesses us as family units. Wouldn't it seem natural, even downright obligatory, that we would gather as those same household units that he has given his blessings to, that we are enjoying? Christian families are not just collections of Christian individuals sharing a home as it happens. They're little communities of God's people who worship Him and serve Him rightly together. As a matter of fact, that's basic to their claim to be a true Christian family, it seems to me. A family that doesn't ever gather and relate to God together as a family, maybe a collection of Christians, but I'm not sure it can be called a Christian family. Joshua said it very famously, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. There's nothing more basic to our service to God than our worship, our devotion. So I start there. Why a pattern of family worship in our homes? Because, my friends, we may. That should be enough all by itself. But I'll continue with a second reason, and here I want to get historical on you. I want to talk about church history, and the second reason for family worship is because our fathers in the faith have set such an example for us of family worship. If you gather your families, whether you do it or not, if you gather your families for worship in some kind of pattern in your home, you are part of a very ancient Christian tradition. Go back to the early church fathers, and you can listen to Tertullian speaking of Christian families beginning and ending the day with prayer together. the Church Father Jerome relates the practice of rising at an early hour for Scripture and a hymn and prayer, and he likewise speaks of the early Christians doing the same in the evening. Now it is true, it would seem from my own study of church history, that this practice did suffer somewhat during the medieval period. This was a period in which the church began to have daily services of worship, and for all the good that came from that, it does appear that family gatherings suffered some decline as a result. But that changed in the days of the Protestant Reformation. I don't know if you know this or not, but Friends family worship was a discipline that was revived in a special way by Protestants, by our Presbyterian and Puritan fathers. Some of you will know that Hughes Old is a highly regarded church historian. picked up this line from one of his works. He says, what the liturgy of the hours was for monks of the Middle Ages, the discipline of family prayers was for the Puritans. not just the Puritans, not just Presbyterians, but the Protestants as a whole were distinguished for this return to a pattern of family worship. I'll quote now from a man named J.W. Alexander. He was a 19th century Presbyterian minister in the state of New York, and he wrote a book, it's long but on my shelf, Thoughts on Family Worship. Listen to what Alexander says. whatever may be the practice of their degenerate sons, ouch, the early reformers are universally known to have set great value on family devotion. The prayers of Luther in his house are recorded with warmth by his contemporaries and biographers, The churches of Germany, in a better day, were blessed with a wide prevalence of household piety. Similar facts are recorded of Switzerland, France, and Holland. But in no country has the light of the dwelling burned more brightly than in Scotland. Perhaps no land, in proportion to its inhabitants, ever had so many praying families. Now, Alexander writes this as a Presbyterian. You might accuse him of a certain amount of bias in this, but actually, my friends, I gather from my own reading that even those outside of the Presbyterian tradition have to admit that in the study of the Reformation in Scotland, that was one of the distinctives of our Presbyterian fathers, an emphasis on family worship. Did you know that those same men who there at a Westminster assembly in the 1640s gave us the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Larger Catechism, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, those Statements of Faith that Presbyterians hold? Did you know that they also wrote something they called the Directory for Family Worship? I'll quote from that. They write, Besides the public worship in congregations, mercifully established in this land in great purity, it is expedient and necessary that secret worship of each person alone, and private worship of families, be pressed and set up that with national reformation the profession and power of godliness, both personal and domestic, be advanced." This is a provision made for family worship in our Scottish Presbyterian forefathers. You might even be interested to know that those same fathers made provision for holding heads of households accountable for their having family worship in their homes. Listen to this, and they go on to say, to the end that these directions may not be rendered ineffectual and unprofitable among some through the neglect of the duty of family worship, The assembly doth further require and appoint ministers and ruling elders to make diligent search and inquiry in the congregations committed to their charge, whether there be among them any family or families which neglect this necessary duty. If any such family be found, the head of the family, is to be first admonished privately to amend his fault." And then, my friends, what continues from that point is actually a process of discipline, church discipline, for heads of households that simply refuse to gather their families for worship. Wow. Words from another era ratifying this claim that I'm making that our fathers in the faith have set such a powerful example of this for us. Why family worship? Because we may, because our fathers did and commend it to us. And now let me turn in a more practical direction with you as I make a case for family worship in your homes. Brothers and sisters, thirdly, because the peace and unity of your home depends on it. I want to remind you here of the famous principle that our Lord Jesus gives us in Matthew 18, verse 20. He says, there where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Friends, one of the reasons we ought to be so eager to gather in our households, to pursue God in worship, is that there is a special spiritual intimacy with Christ that's possible only when we gather. This is something Jesus guarantees in Matthew 18, and we ought to take him at his word. Now Matthew 18 20 doesn't just apply to family worship. It includes all manner of other meetings of Christians as they gather in Christ's name. But friends, shouldn't it be a principle that motivates us, particularly as heads of households, to gather our families? Because in doing so, according to what Jesus says, He draws near to us in a special way. There is more of the presence of Christ in your home when you gather in these ways to worship. Gathering doesn't have to be very big. Two or three are gathered. That's a pretty small household. It's not a very high quorum for his special spiritual presence. But I just submit it to you. Could there be anything more vital for your home than the presence of Christ in it? Could there be anything more that you eagerly desire than spiritual intimacy with Christ for all of the members of your household? Well, then you need to gather your household members in His name. And I'll add at this point, it's not just spiritual intimacy with Christ that's gained when we gather in His name. It also brings about greater spiritual intimacy with each other. Isn't this true? There's nothing like praying and reading scripture to draw two people closer together, to stir up love and compassion and patience and forgiveness and all those other virtues that we really do need living in close quarters with others. For example, any good marriage counselor, good Christian marriage counselor worth his salt, is going to say as one of the most basic items of homework for a couple, for example, who are struggling in their marriage, you need to be praying together. You need to be opening up God's Word together. Why? Why is that so basic to healing and then preserving peace and unity in a marriage? It's because Christ draws near to us when we gather in his name and enjoy those means of grace together, and there is something powerfully promoting of intimacy when we do those things towards each other. You've heard the expression, the family that prays together, stays together. You may have thought that was a little trite, but folks, there's actually something quite profoundly true about that. Peace prevails, love grows in homes, where Jesus is present. And Jesus' presence in that special way is known uniquely in the gatherings that we do in our homes. It's not been too long ago that our church resurrection was going through the COVID season like every other church, and here in North Carolina we had this short period of time when we were shut up to our homes, we weren't able to gather as a congregation, And I took opportunity then, my resurrection members will remember, to really emphasize that even if we can't for a time gather as a whole congregation for corporate worship, as we call it, we are still free to enjoy the full benefits of family worship. And I actually added to my reminders to the congregation at that time, not only is this a privilege that we have, and we should make the most of it during this COVID shutdown season, but as we are facing weeks upon weeks of being in close quarters and greater confinement, folks, you'll remember I said, you know what? If you don't read together, if you don't pray together, if you don't have some patterns of family worship, you will probably kill each other. And with a little bit of hyperbole, I was trying to make the point, it's hard. It's hard to live in close quarters with other sinners. It's famously hard, or infamously hard, I should say, for families to get along in such close quarters. And the thing we need, more than anything else, is the daily grace of God. Family worship, my friends, is how you get that grace. And if your home is a home full of stress, full of irritation and impatience, if your home is troubled, look no further than this particular issue. You are more than likely not making use of that most powerful promoter of peace and unity in a home than gathering as a worshiping family. We, as a Trice family, have a pattern of going to the beach each summer. We've had that for many years. And we get a house. It's usually not a big house, because I don't want to pay for a big house rental. We get a house, and we stay, all seven of us over the years, in those close quarters for seven days, oftentimes a little bit more than seven days. And I've realized somewhere along the way, you know, as fun as vacation is, And as fun as it is to have no particular regiment, no particular disciplines, we're on vacation after all, it actually can be a little problematic to be that close to each other for that much time. I have found that I'm not alone, that sometimes family feuds begin on vacation. What do you know? Because folks are all packed in tight together for that period of time. I realized at some point, boy, if there's ever a time when to preserve the sweetness of the experience, we need a pattern of family devotions. It's when we're on vacation and we begin to make that the one thing of all the other things that we let go of, the one thing we kept, and it has been quite a lesson to me of how the means of grace that I'm talking about here are so important in keeping peace and unity in a family. We'll have one more reason, which is relevant to the place that we find ourselves in this series on Christian parenting. One more reason for a pattern in our homes of family worship, and that is that it presents the perfect opportunity for intentional parental instruction. That's a pretty good reason for family worship all by itself. Parents of Resurrection, I remind you of the vows that we have all taken as we have submitted our children for baptism. Do you promise to instruct your child in the principles of our holy religion as revealed in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and as summarized in the Confession of Faith and Catechisms of this Church? That's a vow to instruct our children in that Ephesians 6 way. Why do we promise this? Well, we promise this as Presbyterians because we have some sense that we've been given this great heritage, the Reformed faith in particular, and that's a precious thing that we are to pass down to our children. But how do we do this? How do we instruct our children in the principles of our holy religion? How do we do that? That's perhaps daunting to many of us. It has certainly been daunting to me. Well, my friends, this is something that can only be done with a plan, with a more or less systematic approach to instructing our children in the scriptures. Every Christian needs to be a, pardon me, every Christian home needs to be a home school. In at least this respect, you have rightly seen your responsibilities as parents to instruct your children. in the principles of our holy Christian religion. Remember how Paul speaks of Timothy's mother and her apparent labors in this area, 2 Timothy 3 verse 15, he says to Timothy, from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. His mother Eunice, perhaps even his grandmother Lois, we know her name as well from the letters of Paul, had some systematic way of teaching Timothy his faith. Now that baptismal vow about the catechism, what is up with that? Now here's the question I would put to my fellow parents. Do you ever feel intimidated by the task of knowing, well, what are the essential things about the Christian faith, the things that I have to make sure my children understand, the things that I can't afford to leave out of their education in the things of the Lord? Well, folks, it's not as if every one of us as Christian parents are left to reinvent that wheel for ourselves, to think, well, what are the things most important in the Bible that I need to make sure my children understand? Here's the good news. Our fathers in the faith have taken great pains to summarize for us exactly what those essentials of the Christian faith are. And I'm referring to those catechisms that are referenced in that parental vow, the baptisms of our children. Is anyone listening to this podcast with no understanding or no acquaintance with this thing I'm calling a catechism? You might hear that word and think of something found in the Roman Catholic tradition, and indeed it is. It's something that Roman Catholic parents and churches use. But those of us who are Protestants actually would make the case that catechetical instruction was first discovered and made ample use of by the Protestant reformers. Luther wrote a catechism. Calvin wrote a catechism. Nearly all the major reformers wrote catechisms, and some of us believe from the historical record that it was in light of the great success of that that our Roman Catholic friends began to do the same as well. The Westminster Assembly, of course, produced two catechisms. It produced the larger catechism and the shorter catechism. What is this catechism, you say? Well, in the simplest form, it is a summary of our Christian faith put in the form of questions and answers. It's specifically intended to be a tool for teaching children. I'll be coming back to ways we can use the catechism in practical ways in just a moment, but Parents, I just want to say, if you haven't discovered a good catechism, and if you haven't put it to use in your home, I believe you're forfeiting perhaps the single greatest aid in Bible instruction that is available to us in the history of the Church. Family worship is a perfect opportunity to incorporate this tradition of catechetical instruction in our homes. I mentioned Terry Johnson a moment ago in his book on the subject of family worship. Listen to what he says in this respect as I bring this first why a family worship section to a close. Listen to Terry Johnson. He writes, children growing up with the daily experience of seeing their parents humbled in worship. focusing on spiritual things, submitting to the authority of the word, catechizing and otherwise instructing their children, will not easily turn from Christ. Our children should grow up with the voices of their fathers pleading for their souls in prayer, ringing in their ears, leading to their salvation or else haunting them for the rest of their lives. Johnson is pointing to the power of children growing up seeing their parents in those postures of worship there in their home. So am I making a good case for family worship? I sure am trying to. Four reasons for gathering your family in regular patterns of worship, because you may, because your fathers did and have set such an example of it for you, because your family's peace and unity and love needs it, and because there's no better way to instruct your children in the things of the Lord. All right, now at this point and for the rest of our time, let's talk about the how of family worship. I have in mind in particular those who have perhaps heard of such a pattern or practice in the home, but have frankly never ventured in that direction and are just not exactly sure how to start. Let me take up a few questions that may come up in our minds about this and then lead more towards just some practical counsel in setting a pattern of family worship. The question of who should lead family worship has already come up. You heard in the words of the Directory of Family Worship by our Presbyterian Fathers, heads of households should feel the responsibility to be the ones to gather their families and to lead their families in worship. Someone has to take that initiative. And when there is a father in the house, gentlemen, that falls to you. That's part of your broader spiritual leadership role in your home. I hasten to say that where there is no father, or where that father is incapable, or that father is simply away for a time, for example, mom, that falls rightly to you, and you are rightly even if it's temporarily, the head of the household and the one able and responsible to gather your family in worship. I remember both kinds of family worship events in my home growing up. My father was the default leader of family worship. And then there were those times when in his absence, mom was the leader. When should we do it? When in the day should we do it? And here I simply say, friends, consider what's most realistic, what's most feasible for your family. If dad is up at the crack of dawn and he's gone at some unearthly hour, probably not the morning. Many families have settled into family worship in the evenings. Many that I have seen in our congregation and elsewhere tie it to that gathering for the evening meal. It's a very natural and oftentimes, just in terms of logistics, some of the most Convenient times to gather families is when they're already gathered and the meal has just been completed and dad takes his Bible out and begins family worship. What then does family worship consist of? A great deal of variety is possible in this area, friends, and there's a great deal of freedom for each of us to do what is most edifying in our own homes. But some of the most basic elements of family worship are just prayer by one or by all of the members of the household, praise. Yes, you can sing in your homes like you do at church, scripture reading, and then scripture meditation or discussion of what's been read. So here's a sample family worship service in a home. Dad gets his Bible out. Perhaps the family's been reading through one of the Gospels. He chooses a short section of the Gospel and reads that, and then Afterwards, begins to ask a few questions of the children as they were listening to him read, and those questions not only enable them to respond to what they heard and their thoughts, but also gives dad opportunity to explain what was read. Then one or more of the members of that little circle prays, and perhaps the family concludes with the favorite hymn or a doxology. That is family worship, all the parts in its entirety. Very, very simple form. Just bear in mind, friends, that family worship is like the worship of our churches. It's a dialogue. It's talking to God, and it's listening to him in reply. Prayer and praise, that's talking to God. Scripture reading, scripture meditation, that is listening to God. Don't make it more complicated than those things. But having said that, let me also say to you for your great encouragement, I hope, there is a wealth of resources that are available these days for families who are earnest about setting a pattern of family worship. I'll be referencing a place that you can go in just a moment for these resources, but let me just emphasize in particular that in that area of meditating on the scriptures, drawing out from passages of scriptures the things which are there to be learned, that's an area where we may feel most intimidated, and that's also an area where there's such a wealth of resources. You can lean on the wisdom of so many others when you're seeking to, with your family, meditate on and discuss passages of Scripture. So families with small children, let me speak of you first. My encouragement to you is make family worship all about the stories of the Bible. Resurrection has a children's Bible reading plan, And it's nothing more than just all those portions of the Bible that are devoted to telling the stories of redemptive history put in chronological order. In that connection, there are some very fine Bible storybooks that are available. Many of us consider Catherine Vos to be the gold standard for that, and that's just a rendering of the biblical story in even simpler language than it appears in the Bible, and those that are most faithful are the ones that we want for our homes, the ones that capture the gist of the story that's being told. In addition to that, families with small children, this is your opportunity to introduce your children to what we call the First Catechism. I've talked about the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Westminster Larger Catechism, those were both written in the 17th century, but a much more recent form of catechism among Presbyterians is called the First Catechism, published by our denomination. And that is, at the crayon-simple level, an introduction to the Christian faith for our very small children. First question of the First Catechism is, who made you? The answer? God. The second question is, what else did God make? And the answer to that is, God made all things. Why did God make you in all things? Answer, for his own glory. Friends, I'm smiling as I recite these, because I learned these as a very young child. And I am still struck in my ripe older age with the profundity of some of these very simple answers to very important questions. As your children get older, this will be opportunity for you to make use of resources that are really geared towards the questioning time in your children's lives. The questions, Mommy, why is this? Why is this? Or Daddy, why is that? as your children move into those big questions. This is an opportunity to use some of the resources like Sinclair Ferguson's big book of questions and answers about Jesus. I mentioned that just because I remember so well many years ago reading that to what were then young children in my household and realizing I was learning things didn't expect this. I was learning things from this little introduction to Christology, the doctrine of Christ, that I was reading to my children. At some point, you begin to have opportunity to introduce your children to the Shorter Catechism. So the first question of the Shorter Catechism, for example, is, what is the chief end of man? Answer, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. 2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him? Answer, the Word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him. So at some point, parents, your children are capable, if not every word of the Shorter Catechism, at least as you explain it to them, they're capable of understanding and embracing that more mature summary of the Christian faith, and you can fold that into your family worship times. As your kids become young adults, that becomes a golden opportunity for really substantive discussions about spiritual things. This is your opportunity to read the scriptures and relate in more adult-like ways with your kids. This was a season in our family when I was able to introduce the children to commentaries, so I would read from a portion of Scripture, and then I would read a commentary, and then make that the substance of our discussion. Our favorite family comment—sorry, our family's favorite commentators, Dale Ralph Davis, and particularly his Old Testament commentaries, and we came to love him in our times of family worship. Friends, there are so many resources, and I have one particular suggestion for where you can go to find them. Westminster Books has long been my go-to place for Christian literature in general, but that is a place, you can find it online, that has a wonderful selection of children's books and also a whole section on family worship resources. It's really delightful and you can find it online at wtsbooks.com. I'll just note to you that Family worship is to remain worship. I don't want, in all my emphasis on parental instruction in family worship, to turn it into a classroom. It's a subset of family worship where we're doing that instruction of our children, and Ash and I found that there was also a real benefit to our having some other time in our family's patterns outside of our family worship gatherings when we would do more intentional instruction, and perhaps I'll circle back around to that. My wife had, in the early days of our home, tea time in the afternoon. I was away at work and she would do the catechism during tea time. And when my kids were older and I wanted to make sure they had an understanding of this or that subject, I would often have what I called dad class with them and we would go through different books that were devoted to teaching on certain subjects. So don't let family worship be consumed with parental instruction so it becomes nothing more than a classroom experience, but recognize that in that ongoing way—gathering with your children, opening up God's Word, reading and discussing it, and then modeling for them and including them in acts of devotion like prayer and praise—you are teaching your children. You are instructing them in the Lord Jesus. And this is what I've been wanting to emphasize so much in this podcast. Let me wrap up with a few pointers, just by way of conclusion. Friends, include the members of your family that can't even yet, at least, get much out of family worship. You don't know for sure how much they're getting, your young children. And so that's an argument to err on the side of including them. But one thing that they do get is the significance of being together with the rest of the family. They do get being included, even from a very young age, and including your infants and toddlers in your family worship is a wonderful way in your home to be preparing them for being brought into corporate worship. I'll be returning back to that subject, Lord willing, next time. If you do have young children, do, my friends, fathers, my fellow fathers, do gear your devotional exercises low in order to accommodate the youngest members of the family. I, from time to time, become aware of well-meaning dads. who get really rigorous and vigorous in their family worship resolutions, and family worship is too long. Family worship is too deep. It's not very kid-friendly. And this really should be an opportunity for us to make the elements of the worship that we're enjoying together as a family as accessible as possible, even for the youngest members of the household. And then let me just say, friends, remember in all of perhaps the idealism that can enter in as we think about so worthy a pursuit, just remember, my friends, something is better than nothing in this area of family worship. Perfectionism, idealism, well that can become just one more obstacle to our actually doing a family worship. Don't let that eye for the perfect ruin the good in your home in this area. Let's just face it, life is not friendly to family worship. There's all kinds of logistical things that will get in the way. Your heart is not always a friend to family worship. Just like in our private devotional lives, sometimes we are tempted to let it slide just because we're spiritually dry and we know it. More and more, as your children get older, your kid's schedule is not going to be friendly to family worship. By the way, when your children are young and you're in complete control of their schedule, make the most of that in setting these patterns of family worship. And when they get older, recognize there's going to have to be a lot of flexing to seize the time when the family is actually able to be together. And in all of this, it's highly likely, my friends, certainly if you're at all like me, that you will get sidetracked despite your best intentions to be regular and consistent in family worship. You will start, and then you'll taper off. You'll have a good successful run, and then you'll get distracted, and will fall by the wayside. And my friends, Just be willing again and again and again to start again in this pattern of family worship. Even when you are discouraged, even when you have recognized, oh, that just isn't what it should be, take comfort in the fact that just as in our personal lives, when we don't get everything we might have wanted out of a time of prayer or don't have a sense of blessing from the reading of God's word, there is this cumulative effect of simply gathering and being in the word together as a family and gathering and approaching God in prayer as a family. There's a cumulative spiritual effect that will be profoundly shaping of your home and it will produce peace. It will promote love and unity. This subject is one that I talk about with a certain sense of failure. As a father, there are so many ways in which I could have made more of our opportunities for family worship over the years. I let our patterns of family worship get spotty again and again. But one thing I do trust, that my children, now in their adulthood, could say looking back about my leading this family of ours in worship, I hope they could say he kept at it. We weren't as perfectly consistent as would have been ideal for us to be, but Dad didn't stop gathering us for worship, even starting again, when the patterns had become frayed. So, my friends, start, just start. If you've never done this in your home, start. Confer together, husbands, wives, moms, dads, confer together. Talk about it with your children if they're of that age where they can be part of the discussion when and how we'll go about doing this. Dads, lead off. Moms, be willing to be ready to be his greatest supporter in this worthy discipline. Start it. And if you've started it in the past and you have let it go, friends, just start again. I'm going to close with a quote from a Puritan. His name is Philip Doddridge, and he's reminding us that the greatest spiritual blessing is very often on the part of those received and experienced, on the part of those who are leading in this initiative of family worship. He says, do you not find that the sweetest truths of Christianity, which are your hope and your joy in this house of your pilgrimage, are peculiarly sweet when you talk them over with your children? Do you not find that your instructions and admonitions to them return into your own bosom with a rich increase of edification and refreshment? Thus, while you are watering these household plants, your children, you are watering also yourselves. And from these holy conversations with your children, you rise to more endearing communion with your Heavenly Father. Friends, gather your families for worship, and as part of that worship, for the instruction of the Lord, what our fathers would call the family altar, gather your families. It will be of rich profit to you, and it will be an essential part of your faithful Christian parenting. Well, that's enough for one podcast to be sure, and I look forward to continuing in this theme in good time. But for now, brothers and sisters, take heart. Christ is risen. You've been listening to Resurrection Life with Pastor Nathan Trice, a ministry of Resurrection Presbyterian Church in Matthews, North Carolina. If you've been blessed by today's podcast, consider sharing it with someone you know. And thank you for joining us.