God commands family worship. The Christian father leading his family in biblical instruction and prayer in the home is a non-negotiable. And like all of God’s commandments, there is great joy and delight in obeying them. Family worship is both a joy and a duty for the Christian family.
We have evidence of family worship dating back to the time of Abraham. For in Genesis 18:19 God says, “For I have chosen him [Abraham], so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” Furthermore, in Exodus we learn that God required fathers to teach their children the meaning of the Passover (12:23-27). Again in Deuteronomy, prior to the people of Israel entering the Promised Land of Canaan, we see family worship commanded when Moses reminds the people of their covenant responsibility before God to “diligently” teach their children the Scriptures. He states the familiar words, “Hear O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead."
Throughout the centuries we can find much evidence of God’s people taking seriously the biblical mandate of family worship. Our own confession takes for granted the practice of family worship by stating that:
“God is to be worshiped everywhere, in spirit and truth, as, in private families daily, and in secret, each one by himself; so, more solemnly in the public assemblies, which are not carelessly or willfully to be neglected or forsaken, when God, by His Word or providence, calleth thereunto” (WCF (1647): XXI. 6).
Notice the threefold approach to worship: Family, private, and public. Unfortunately, it is family worship that is most neglected in present day evangelicalism (Though it must be said: private and public worship are also slowly becoming ‘unnecessary burdens’ to many who just want the casual, entertaining, and convenient approach to the faith … an approach unfamiliar to biblical Christianity).
The fruit of family worship, I believe, aside from bringing glory to God, are godlier fathers, mothers, children, families, churches, communities, and nations. For there is something undeniably powerful about parents reading and teaching the Scriptures to their children while on a daily basis modeling lives of dependence upon God through Christ. Just think of the spiritual impact we can have if day after day, for eighteen years, our children hear and read God’s Word and see it lived out before them. I think sometimes we mix up our children (and entire families) by telling them that God and His Word are of utter and primary importance in our lives when we only speak of Him or worship Him one hour, or so, a week.
Grace Presbyterian Church, let’s make (or renew) our commitment to daily leading our families to Christ through the Word and prayer. It has been a blessing for me to see families who have recently begun this beautiful discipline, and who are already seeing its life transforming effects.
Pastor Jon