Family Worship Guide for August 2, 2026
Prepare for Songs and Psalms
A Song to Learn This Week
Practice this hymn with your children, and talk about what it means.
98 | “Come, Ye Sinners,” Joseph Hart, Caleb Taylor
From The Sing! Hymnal: “This hymn by English pastor Joseph Hart beckons the lost to find a willing Savior, ready to help. It is a welcoming call, and it comes without cost, courtesy of free grace. We need not wait to come to Christ until we have achieved some state of worthiness, because we would never measure up on our own. The refrain by Caleb Taylor is our response: ‘I will arise and go to Jesus.’”
Responsive Reading: Psalm 121
Read the Psalm together. Practice saying it responsively. Try memorizing one or more verses.
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
Talk About the Songs and Psalms
Choose a verse from a song or psalm. Read it together and discuss these questions using the “Swedish method:”
- What do you notice about these words? What do you like? What is surprising?
- Is there anything you don’t understand? Is there anything you wonder about?
- What do these words tell you about God? What do they tell you about yourself?
- Talk to God together about what you’ve discussed. Praise Him, thank Him, and ask for His help.
Prepare for Children’s Worship
Use this guide to prepare your children for their time learning in the classroom on Sunday morning (and for the Old and New Testament readings).
Unit 13 Memory Verse | 1 Kings 8:60 — “That all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other.”
Unit 13 Big Picture Q&A | How many gods are there? | Preschool: There is one true God. | Elementary: There is one true God who alone deserves worship.
Bible Story | “The Reign of Ahab,” 1 Kings 20–22; 2 Kings 1. Read this story to your children from the Bible or from a storybook Bible. Prompt your children to describe the characters and events of the passage.
Christ Connection | Ahab was a disobedient, greedy, and stubborn king who refused to lead Israel in the ways of the Lord. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, always obeyed God and laid down His life for us. Anyone who follows Him will dwell with God forever.
Introduction to the Story
Have you ever heard the expression “you reap what you sow”? Perhaps you feel the burn of those words as you think of times you made a hasty decision or took matters into your own hands, only to later watch things fall apart. In today’s text, Ahab made a series of poor choices which ultimately led to his demise.
First, the Lord gave King Ahab victory over the Arameans—not once, but twice—to remind Ahab that He is the Lord. When Israel won the second battle, they captured Ben-hadad, but Ahab disobeyed God and agreed to a treaty, releasing Ben-hadad.
Second, a man named Naboth owned a vineyard that caught Ahab’s interest. In his greed, Ahab and his wife Jezebel developed a wicked scheme to take Naboth’s vineyard. Their deception turned murderous when hired men lied about Naboth, saying he had cursed God and the king. Naboth was falsely convicted and sentenced to death.
A few years later, Ahab wanted to go to war against the Arameans once again. Ahab’s false prophets supported his decision, but Micaiah, a prophet of the true God, advised against it, since going to war against Aram would fail. Once again, Ahab acted stubbornly and went to war anyway. During the battle, he was struck by an arrow and died.
While God showed Ahab patience and gave him many warnings, Ahab ultimately refused to repent. Like Ahab, we can be greedy and stubborn. In our sin, we rebel against God and act according to our flesh. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus (Romans 6:23). Jesus lived a perfect life and died in the place of sinners so that we might be forgiven and be made right with God.
Encourage boys and girls to see that because Christ laid down His life for us, we can escape the punishment we deserve because of our sin. Teach kids that when we believe in Jesus and repent of sin, Christ removes our unrighteousness and changes our hearts so that we desire to follow God and His ways.
Prepare for Pulpit Ministry
This Week’s Text | Deuteronomy 13
Some Context for Adults | From the Gospel Coalition Commentary: “The words for ‘prophet’ and ‘dreamer’ are not pejorative in themselves—the issue in the first scenario is that the miracle-backed message is highly toxic. Worshipping gods which ‘you have not known’ is a radical rejection of the covenant God who has made himself known to the Patriarchs and to Israel at the Exodus. Israel must react to such temptation by strengthening their efforts to love God with heart and soul and to live for and listen to him (the same vocabulary we have seen repeatedly in Deut 5–11). The penalty for imperilling the nation by preaching rebellion is death. Moses insists for the first time that God’s people must be ruthless in dealing with evil from the inside.”
COMA Questions
Context, Observation, Meaning, Application
- What is a prophet? What do you think it would mean for someone to be a ‘false’ prophet?
- What do you notice about this passage? Are there any words you don’t know?
- What do you think is the message or story of this passage?
- What do you think God wants you to think or do after reading this passage?
Pray | After you have read and discussed the passage, thank God for His Word and ask Him to apply it to your life. Ask for the specific applications you identified in your discussion.
