# How was your Lord's Day?



## kodos (Feb 2, 2015)

Since we have some threads on the Sabbath and the Superbowl, I thought it might be good for those curious about Sabbath keeping to see how the saints here kept the Lord's Day! I'll go first.

Our family of 6 woke up a little earlier than usual. We have a saint of the RP church from a persecuted country visiting our congregation as they are in Dallas doing some research. It was our family's turn to pick them up. We had a quick breakfast, got the kids ready and left our home at 7:30am. On the way, we listened to a sermon from Rev. Stewart of the Glasgow RP congregation in Scotland. The kids were excited to spend time with our visitor in the car and all got up very early.

We picked up our guest, and we got a wonderful conversation with them about how saints in other parts of the world are living, under the hands of an oppressive regime, and how even things we take for granted like 'homeschooling', are slowly starting to become implemented in countries that are extremely hostile to such things. Made me extremely grateful for what we enjoy in this country, and also was a strengthening of my faith as I considered how God was building His Church.

We got to the church building around 8:45am. We had a good time visiting with Rev. Koller who is always at the building early! Andrew's (our very own Andres) family also showed up early at 9am, so it was a good time to visit with everyone before Sabbath School which was at 9:30am. In that class, we studied the Preface to the Ten Commandments via Questions 43 and 44 in the Shorter Catechism.

After class, the children of the church came up to recite their catechism memory work. We have children from ages 3 and up memorizing from either the Children's Catechism or the Shorter Catechism. Too many adorable moments to count when the children come up, and it is always an encouragement to hear them learn more of our faith (and a good reminder to the adults of the answers to these questions).

When we were done, we had a good time visiting with families as they started arriving for morning worship. Morning worship was at 10:45am - and we heard a wonderful sermon preached on Psalm 15.

Then it was time for lunch with the saints - most of our families stay for lunch, and we had a good time of fellowship - plus one family had brought some venison stew, and it was pretty remarkable.

There was a time for the older children to have their communicant members class before afternoon service, so they went to be a part of that.

At 2pm it was time for our second worship service, and we finished the book of Jonah. There's always this great feeling of accomplishment when we wrap up a book of the Bible, and certainly it was nice closing out Jonah.

More fellowship afterward, several families left for the day. We usually have around 4 families left for Psalm practice - so we did that from 3:45pm to 4:30pm.

The remaining families stayed for more fellowship opportunities, but I had a very rough week - worked several 15 hour days, so I took this opportunity to go home and sleep early. We took our visitor back to Dallas, and got home around 6pm. We had dinner with the family, had a good opportunity to discuss with them what we had learned at church today, between all of the classes, and sermons and psalm singing - and then we put the children to bed.

My wife and I stayed up for a little bit, doing some reading (I am currently studying the first commandment) - but I turned in around 9:30pm so I could get some extra sleep (which I needed).

I always wish that the Lord's Day could last several more hours - and those times when we have planned poorly and have to prepare dinner, or do something that interrupts the rest that we have, it starts to become a real annoyance as it pulls my focus away from delighting in the day! It is always over far too quickly.

We never really ever focus on the "dos and the donts", we simply try to feast on the means of grace, and the fellowship with God's People, and our family's spirituality, and everything works itself out!

How was your Lord's Day?


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## Leslie (Feb 2, 2015)

It sounds as if you had a profitable day. Sundays around here are BORING. My husband and I do worship together morning and evening, but other than that and taking walks, there is not much to do. There are little tea shops around a hospital a mile away from us; we walk there for tea and crumpets, try to patronize the Muslim shops so as to not encourage the Christians to skip church. Other than that, we spend the day reading, trying not to work, but it's not easy. When we are in Addis Ababa there is an excellent Episcopal church that we attend on Sunday morning, sometimes in the evening also, but transportation is a problem. Sundays are a negative with living here. The other days of the week there are many chances for ministry, and I'm very grateful to not be living in the States.


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## SolamVeritatem (Feb 2, 2015)

Rom,

Your description of what you and your family experienced on the Lord's Day was amazing...

I don't know as much as I'd like to about being Sabbatarian, but I have dear friends who have had similar experiences as the one you mentioned above, and I am learning a great deal about the joy and beauty of honoring the Lord on His Day. 

I like what you said at the end as well, because I think so many individuals see this as more law abiding than communion with the Lord through Sabbath rest. 

As far as how I spent my Lord's Day?

Well, I did have an opportunity to worship with my brothers and sisters for Sunday School and Morning Worship, but since I am in the military I had the distinct privilege of serving Command Duty Officer from 6pm to 8am the following morning. I essentially had to make sure that our sailors conducted themselves properly during the Super Bowl festivities at the base club while on watch. 

Thanks again for recounting how you spent your Lord's Day with the family for us. 

In Him,

Craig


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## Jake (Feb 2, 2015)

We generally attend the OPC congregation in the morning and then attend BHPC in the afternoons. 

My wife woke up sick in the morning to the point where it would not be good to attend. I woke early and spent some time reading through Isaiah and looking at Henry's commentaries primarily. I ended up going to morning service without her. There was a sermon on Romans 11 which was challenging and had some brief conversation including about the sermon afterwards and then headed home before sabbath school to check on my wife. Thankfully, she was doing better and we were able to leave for BHPC a bit later. She spent some time reading the Practical Sabbitarian when she woke up.

We got there right as they were singing the doxology for the morning service and joined in. Then we had lunch. We had much good time for fellowship between lunch and after service, where I brought up some passages of Scripture that had been less clear to me that week, we discussed everything also from the church abroad to bible translations to our testimonies with various people at the church. The afternoon service was a blessing, as there was a good sermon I Samuel 16, we sang from Psalm 65, 148, and the doxologies at either end (from Psalm 29 and 117). 

We left a bit earlier than normal for my wife's sake, but we still had a good time together. We had a light dinner and spent the rest of the day primarily in Scripture reading and psalm singing. We read some of Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Romans, and Revelation. We read a bit from Matthew Henry and Calvin on a few verses here and there and had some profitable discussion on the sermons and Scripture readings of the day (including discussing the one she missed). We also spent more time in psalm singing in order to practice some new psalms. Lately we have been learning Psalm 72 moreso.

It was a very good day, and my wife is doing much better. We ended up going to bed early, as I had early classes this morning, but we talked after lights were out for a while about some passages of Scripture we had been reading that day.


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## reaganmarsh (Feb 2, 2015)

Our children are still very young, so we got up, fed them, and then I took our son with me to open the church building. He enjoys helping with the lights and providing a running commentary on anything and everything. That's always a joy. 

My wife walked over from the parsonage with our daughter a little later for Sunday School. 

I preached for the first time since getting out of the hospital. It was a blessing to me to be able to be back in the pulpit. God was kind that, in my physical weakness, I was able to speak plainly and to give a good exposition of the final verses of 1 Peter (we concluded the book yesterday, and I agree with our brother above that it is a good feeling!) I was thankful for the church's kindness in allowing me a shorter sermon yesterday, since I wasn't strong enough to preach as long as normal. 

I attended deacons meeting after the AM worship service and then walked back to the parsonage. After lunch, I took a much-needed nap and my son asked if he could go back to church with me early (I was planning to read in my Study). That was a great idea. We'd been there for about 15-20 minutes when a homeless couple was providentially dropped off by a police officer from the adjoining county (our campus is right on the county line). They attended PM worship and I was privileged to share the gospel with them and give them a Bible. They had some significant questions about the Scriptures and their souls, so it was a good conversation. 

One of our deacons, in the goodness of God, had already planned to preach in my place for the PM worship (to allow me the time to rest), so I was quite free to minister to this couple. He preached on the importance of creeds in the life of the church, utilizing the Apostles Creed. I was summoned out of the service about halfway through. My son told me that, after the closing prayer, the deacon asked him to recite the Creed for the congregation to encourage them in memorizing it. My son complied (as soon as my wife whispered that we'd give him an ice-cream sandwich at home as a reward!) Ha! 

We went home, ate dinner, had a brief time of family worship (the kids were pretty tired and so was I at that point), and my wife and I relaxed for a little while before bed. It was not really the way I'd envisioned the day playing out (ie, physical weakness and the homeless couple), but it was a good Lord's Day on the whole.


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## jwithnell (Feb 2, 2015)

We went to church and Sunday school, then hung out at the local bar and watched the Super Bowl. NOT! We had a great time talking with others for a long while after church then came home for dinner. I researched a bit on a question that came up in Sunday School about how the early church fathers used the terms person, nature, and will. As the day was ending, I washed up the dishes listening to a sermon over the same text we had heard expounded during our worship service in the morning.


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## Free Christian (Feb 2, 2015)

I spent mine with family and we had a reading about the Lords Day.


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## Andres (Feb 2, 2015)

kodos said:


> Since we have some threads on the Sabbath and the Superbowl, I thought it might be good for those curious about Sabbath keeping to see how the saints here kept the Lord's Day! I'll go first.
> 
> Our family of 6 woke up a little earlier than usual. We have a saint of the RP church from a persecuted country visiting our congregation as they are in Dallas doing some research. It was our family's turn to pick them up. We had a quick breakfast, got the kids ready and left our home at 7:30am. On the way, we listened to a sermon from Rev. Stewart of the Glasgow RP congregation in Scotland. The kids were excited to spend time with our visitor in the car and all got up very early.
> 
> ...



 

 In all seriousness, I love the Lord's Day and I can honestly say without reservation it is the highlight of my week! I greatly look forward to so many aspects of the Lord's Day including singing the Psalms and hearing the Word preached. I also greatly enjoy fellowship with God's people, including brother Rom and his beautiful family. Speaking of Rom, he has been teaching through the WSC in our Sabbath school time and while all lessons are excellent, I particularly enjoyed his lesson yesterday on the importance of the preface to the ten commandments. If anyone's interested, you can find Rom's classes here. 

The sabbath is indeed a delight!


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## Justified (Feb 2, 2015)

Sadly, not only my Church cancelled service on account of weather, but so did every evangelical church in the area. I desperately missed worship and fellowship.


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