If Christians are really obligated to keep the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” just how do we do it? What is the purpose of the Lord’s Day? What are we supposed to do on Sunday? For one thing, we are supposed to rest. The Hebrew word, “sabbath”, means to rest or to cease from something. On the Lord’s Day, we cease from our regular labors. God has given us a time for rest and recuperation. In this way we imitate God, “for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed” (Exodus 31:17). But the Lord has not given us this day simply to kick back and spend time with our families–let alone to devote ourselves to hunting, water-skiing, or watching the Vikings.
Rather, we are to come apart from our six-day-a-week labors in order to devote ourselves to another kind of enterprise–worshiping our God. Throughout the Old Testament, we are reminded that the Sabbath was not just a holiday, but a religious holiday, a holy day. “Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings” (Leviticus 23:3). Notice that it is a day of solemn or holy rest, on which the people gather together to worship the Lord in a holy convocation. And it is not our day, to do as we please, but it is the Sabbath of the Lord. It is a day of rest for worship.
What a simple, yet blessed way to devote ourselves to the service and glory of God in our generation. Not by observing a number of meaningless, man-made holy days on a church calendar, but by honoring and celebrating the one truly holy day the Lord has instituted in His Word–fifty-two times per year! May the Lord restore a love and a reverence for His day among His people in our generation, and may we know His promised blessing:
Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father (Isaiah 58:14).