When Church Services Are Cancelled: How to Hold Devotions at Home on the Lord’s Day

Faith

Mar 20

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.

R. Scott Clark is professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many churches have cancelled services and some are streaming them for online viewing. My opinion is that the church should submit to the instruction of the governing authorities. If they are discouraging public gatherings, we should obey. I do not think that it is being ungodly or fearful to take wise precautions. We wash our hands after going to the bathroom. Is that fearful? No, that is being wise, gracious, and charitable toward our neighbor.

Were the government seeking to silence us then we might have a duty to gather, but we are not in that position now. This is about being charitable to our neighbors. These guidelines are prudential. It would be tragic to be required to conduct an unusually large number of funerals in the next months because we defied the public health authorities.

Christians live in both the sacred sphere and the secular sphere.

Here is an instance in which it is helpful to remember that we live under what John Calvin called a “twofold government” (duplex regimen). The church is responsible to minister God’s word in the sacred sphere, and the civil magistrate is God’s minister in the secular sphere. We live in both spheres. We have to submit to authorities in both spheres.

We Christians submit to the governing authorities because Romans 13 is still God’s word:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. (Rom 13:1-7)

If your congregation is streaming a service/sermon, then by all means, you should watch and participate as you are able. If your congregation is unable to stream services or a sermon, here is what you can do to hold a time of prayer and Scripture reading in the morning and in the evening.

Morning Devotions

OPEN WITH PRAYER

Since before the Reformation Christian worship services have begun with the recitation of Psalm 124:8:

“Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” Amen.

SING A PSALM OF RESPONSE

Psalm 100B[1] (“the old hundredth”) is well known and easily sung a cappella (without instruments).

PRAY FOR GOD’S BLESSING AND PRESENCE

Almighty God,
to whom our hearts are open,
our desires are known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the gracious power of Your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love You
and worthily magnify Your holy name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.[2]

READ GOD’S HOLY LAW

“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.” (Exod. 20:3–17)

CONFESS YOUR SINS

Almighty and most merciful Father,
we have erred and strayed from Your ways like lost sheep,
we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, we have offended against Your holy laws,
we have left undone those things which we ought to have done,
and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and so we are helpless without You.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders, spare us, as we confess our faults,
restore us, as we are penitent,
according to Your promises declared to us in Christ Jesus our Lord, and grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake,
that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and devout life,
to the glory of Your holy name.
Amen.

READ A PROMISE OF FORGIVENESS

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

READ A SONG OF THANKSGIVING

Consider Exodus 15:1-21.

READ A PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION:

BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

READ A PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURE

Say a prayer of thanksgiving and intercession, such as Exodus 14 or Prayer 2 of “Prayers and Thanksgivings” in the Book of Common Prayer:

O God, the Creator and Preserver of all mankind, we humbly intercede on behalf of all people, that You would be pleased to make Your ways known to them, Your saving grace to all nations. [Specific prayers may be added for missions/missionaries and church plants/church planters.] More especially, we pray for the universal church, that it may be so guided and governed by Your Holy Spirit, that all who profess to be and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth and embrace the faith in the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. Finally, we commend to Your fatherly goodness all those who are in any way afflicted or distressed in mind, body, or any other way. We especially pray for [specific needs are mentioned]. May it please You to comfort and relieve them, according to their particular needs, giving them patience in their sufferings and a blessed deliverance out of all their afflictions. All this we ask for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Read a question and answer from the Heidelberg Catechism:

Q 1. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own,
but belong—
body and soul,
in life and in death—
to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has delivered me from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
also assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.

SING A PSALM OF PRAISE

Consider Psalm 23a, and use the tune: “Crimond” is widely known and easily sung a cappella.

CLOSE WITH PRAYER:

Our heavenly Father,
we ask You to look upon us in grace,
as we look away from ourselves into the face of Your Son, whom You have
appointed our Mediator and Savior.
As all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Your Son, guide us by
Your Holy Spirit into the true understanding of the doctrines of Christ.
May our meditation upon His truth produce in us the fruit of righteousness to the glory and exaltation of His name, the instruction and edification of this congregation, and the salvation of the lost through our witness.
We pray this in the name and favor of Your well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ, in dependence on His Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our Father who is in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. (King James 2000)

Evening Devotions

You can follow the same pattern above for a time of evening prayer.

Heidelberg Catechism questions 26–28 seem especially relevant right now:

26 Q. What do you believe when you say,
“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth”?
A.That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them,1 who still upholds and rules them
by his eternal counsel and providence, is my God and Father
for the sake of Christ his Son. I trust God so much that I do not doubt he will provide
whatever I need for body and soul, and will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends upon me in this vale of tears. He is able to do this because he is almighty God; he desires to do this because he is a faithful Father.
27 Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A.Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God1 by which God upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that
leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and lean years,
food and drink,
health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, in fact, come to us
not by chance
but by his fatherly hand.
28 Q. How does the knowledge of God’s creation and providence help us?
A. We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for the future we can have
good confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature will separate us from his love. For all creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they can neither move nor be moved.

May the Lord bless you and yours today and especially on the Lord’s Day as we gather as those who bear the name of Christ, who rest in his all-wise providence, and who rejoice in the grace of Christ and the salvation that he has earned and freely given to all his people.

Resources

R. Scott Clark, D.Phil., is Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California), President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, and the author of Recovering the Reformed Confession (P&R, 2008) among other titles. For more content from Dr. Clark, please visit heidelblog.net.