July 3rd-9th Family Worship Guide 2022

Family Worship Guide for the Week of July 3-9th, 2022

Bible Passage for the Week
Deuteronomy 16:1-9
1 Peter 3
Malachi 4
Verse to Memorize
Isaiah 6:3

Catechism Questions
Q. Are there more gods than one?
A. There is only one God.

Q. In how many persons does this one God exist?
A. In three persons.

Q. Who are they?
A. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
People to Pray for: 
Church:  Trinity Reformed Church
                Pastor Jody Killingsworth
              
Ministry:  Tim Bayly Work in Germany
                
                               
Civil Magistrate:  Indiana Supreme Court

Notes for Parents

Bible Passage for the Week
This week our nation celebrates its Independence Day.  Patriotism has been on the wane in recent years.  It can be hard to be patriotic in a nation that is so divided and with a civil government so intent on promoting sin.  But God is sovereign and He in his providence has placed us in this nation.  Read the notable quote below from Robert Dabney on patriotism and be encouraged to love your American neighbors.  

Speaking of Independence Day, our passage from Deuteronomy this week documents how the Hebrews were commanded to celebrate their independence from slavery in Egypt.  They were to celebrate the Passover feast and remember how God delivered them out of the hand of Pharoah.  But this Passover celebration was more than a simple national holiday of patriotic remembrance.  It was meant to point God’s people to the coming of Christ would be the true Passover lamb.  Jesus Christ frees us from our sin.  If we want true liberty we must be free from our sins.  The only way to have that is in Jesus.  Therefore this week, teach your children the history of our nation’s independence but use it as a tool to teach them about the true freedom found in Christ.  

In 1st Peter 3, the Apostle instructs both wives and husband on how to live in their particular callings.  This instruction continues the instruction from chapter 2 on how Christians are to be subject to human institutions.  The liberty we have in Christ is the freedom from sin not the license to do whatever we want regardless of our place in life.  God has placed us not only in the nation we live in but he has created us male or female.  He has created us with specific talents and callings.  He has chosen whether we would be born to rich or poor families.  The Gospel of Christ teaches us how to live where God places us by faith.  Teach your children to honor authority and to trust God’s sovereign purposes for them.

Finally, in Malachi 4, we are warned that there is a day of judgement coming.  As we live by faith in this life, we can trust that God will judge the wicked.  This ought to be an encouragement to us and motivate us to a holy fear because God is Holy.

Memory Verse
Our Memory Verse for this week teaches us that God is Holy.   He is set apart.   The Hebrew word for holy is “qodesh” and means “apartness, set-apartness, separateness, sacredness” and I would add that it should also be “otherness, transcendent and totally other” because God is totally above His creation and His creatures, including us.  Holy has the idea of heaviness or weight of glory.  In the New Testament, the word for holy is “hagios” and means set apart, reverend, sacred, and worthy of veneration.”  This word applies to God because God Himself is totally other, separate, sacred, transcendent, reverend, and set apart from every created thing.   When Isaiah got a glimpse of God’s glory, Isaiah was immediately aware of his sin.  Isaiah knew that God was so pure that nothing impure could stand.  Isaiah felt his unholiness and feared.   But God in his grace sent an angel to touch Isaiah’s lips and declared Him clean.  God makes those with humility and faith Holy.  And then He commands us to be Holy.

The catechism questions reveal one aspect of God’s holiness.  He is triune.  There is only one God but this one God exists in three persons.   Each person is fully God and yet there are not three Gods but one.   The truth of the trinity is something that marvels our minds because there is no one else in the universe like our God.

Prayers:
A week ago Trinity Reformed Church underwent a change of leadership.  Pastor Tim Bayly retired from lead pastor and will be going to Germany for six months and then Asia for another six months to teach.   Pastor Jody Killingsworth was installed as the new Head Pastor.  Please pray for both men as they begin new aspects of their ministries.  We praise God for the faithfulness of Pastor Bayly and his leadership for many years.  In addition, pray for both the Indiana Supreme Court and the Kentucky Supreme Court.  These courts will most likely be asked to answer whether there states will allow abortion to continue.  Please pray that rule by God's truth. 


Important Quotes
“The duties of patriotism are not prominently urged in sacred Scripture. This we account for, not by supposing, with a certain sickly school of moralists, that this sentiment is selfish, narrow or inconsistent with the broadest philanthropy; but by the facts, that the obligations of the citizen are not directly religious, and that they are so natural as to require little inculcation. The Hebrew Scriptures do indeed say enough, as in the text, to justify an intense love of native land and its institutions. Civil government is God’s ordinance, and if it be just, one of his greatest temporal blessings. The diversity of tongues, characters, races and interests among mankind forbids their union in one universal commonwealth. The aggregation of men into separate nations is therefore necessary; and the authority of the governments instituted over them, to maintain internal order and external defence against aggression, is of divine appointment. Hence, to sustain our government with heart and hand is not only made by God our privilege, but our duty. Our best way to advance the well-being of the [human] race is to advance that of the portion of our [human] race associated with us in the same society. He who extends his philanthropy so broadly as to refuse a special attachment to the interests of his own people, will probably make it so thin as to be of no account to any people. I therefore believe that there is nothing opposed to an enlightened Christianity in a warm patriotism for our particular country. This feeling is made up of several elements: a legitimate regard for our own welfare and worldly estate, interest in that of our families, and a wider benevolence towards our fellow citizens; together with an honest pride in the glories of our history, and in the justice of our institutions, with the attachments of local affection to the very scenery and soil of our native land. . . .”
                                                                           — R.L. Dabney


It is very evident that both the prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New are at great pains to give us a view of the glory and dignity of the person of Christ. With what magnificent titles is he adorned! What glorious attributes are ascribed to him! All these conspire to teach us that he is truly and properly God - God over all, blessed forever!- From his sermon "The Absolute Necessity of Salvation through Christ", 2 January 1758
                              John Knox Witherspoon February 5, 1723 – November 15, 1794
Presbyterian minister and a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Jersey. He was president of the College of New Jersey (1768–94; now Princeton University).