Call Sunday a Delight
ENJOYING THE LORD’S DAY
A couple Sundays ago, we were challenged to receive Isaiah’s charge to “call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable” and apply it to the Sunday Lord’s Day we experience every week (Is 58:13). To call Sundays “a delight” and see them as a gracious opportunity to rest our bodies and souls in God.
To help us do this, here’s 7 ways to get all that God intends for our Sundays. 7 commitments to embrace in order to best enjoy the Lord’s Day:
Treat them as a day different from the other 6. Anticipate them. Plan for them. Prepare for them. Pray for the Lord to meet us as we gather. Read the sermon text in advance. Pick out your clothes the night before. Go to bed early on Saturdays. Do what you need to do on the other 6 days to get the most out of Sundays.
Rest from your regular labors and work and chores. Taking 1 day out of 7 to stop, rest, and proclaim - to the weary soul within you and the watching world around you - that, “I am limited, but God is not. I am weak, my body grows tired, and I am utterly dependent on God for my existence. Yet, he is strong, he never tires, and he is utterly dependable to sustain me in body and soul. God’s got me. God’s got us. God’s got my family and he will provide for us! I don’t need to work right now, because God is always at work. I can take the day off, because my God never takes a day off from being a good Father to his children.” Practicing a pattern of rest designed to free up your hands, give your body a break, and relieve your mind and heart from doing or even thinking about work. It’ll still be there on Monday.
Find your delight in God and his people on this special day. Psalm 16:2-3 says, “I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” More than anything else, we’re released from work for the purpose of corporate worship. Gathering with God’s people in order to share in who God is and all he’s done. Coming together to remember that God is our Creator and Sustainer (Gen 2:1-3) and confessing our utter dependence upon him. Assembling to celebrate his work of redemption which has brought rest to souls today (Mt 11:28-30; Deut 5:12-15) and guaranteed us a future of eternal rest for endless days (Heb 4:8-10). Every weekly Lord’s Day Sabbath looking forward to that final Sabbath when we’ll enter into the fullness of all that Christ has promised in the gospel and purchased upon the cross.
Keep the Lord’s Day in response to grace. God does not command his people to observe this day (or give themselves to any other practices of worship, devotion, or spiritual disciplines) as some sort of means to earn his grace or stay on his good side. It’s meant to be kept because we have received grace! Don’t consider the command that “you shall not do any work” (Ex 20:10) to be legalistic and burdensomely binding - but an opportunity to receive God’s blessing. As one Puritan author says, the Lord’s Day is “the great means of the means” through which all the means of grace are made available to the people of God. A time to bask in the goodness of the gospel through singing, praying, hearing God’s word proclaimed, taking communion, witnessing baptisms, and serving one another in the power of the Spirit. We don’t deserve any of this, but Jesus Christ, “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet 3:18). So that, every Lord’s Day thereafter, we might draw near with the empty hands of faith to freshly feast upon his amazing grace.
Turn away from pursuing your own agenda and give yourselves to God’s aims. Sunday is not a day for cramming in more work, getting ahead on the week, ‘resting’ by refraining from gathering with God’s people, sun-up to sun-down sports, or a blank check to do whatever you want all day (as long as it’s not work) signed off by God. He has far better to give us than these fleeting attempts to please ourselves: glad-hearted worship, serving his people, advancing the mission of our church, showing mercy to those in need, and enjoying sweet fellowship every step of the way. Give yourself to these things with the expectation that God will glorify himself, satisfy your soul, and shape you after the likeness of Christ through them.
Perform what theologians call, “works of necessity” - as needed. Like medical staff going to work, first responders on the job, pastors serving the church, fixing a flat tire in order to get home, and the other stuff of life that is so urgent that it just can’t wait. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mk 2:27). So if there’s something exceptional that must be dealt with, God wants you to be relieved from any false guilt or fear that you’ve sinned against him or squandered his gift of rest.
Pursue God-honoring recreation that flows downstream from your delighting in God. This means that while it would be perfectly good and right to have morning and evening church services, spend the afternoon in family worship, or set aside the day entirely for the pursuit of spiritual disciplines, there is a place for active and purposeful recreation as well. A pursuit of leisure guided by devoting this free time to that which reorients our hearts to God, refreshes our souls, and draws us deeper into appreciation of what he says is good, beautiful, and true in the wonderful world he’s made. Which means we can spend fun and sweet time together after church, picnic in the park, or grab lunch at 4th St. Play with our kids. Enjoy the beach. Go on a hike. Read a novel. Listen to an album that makes our heart soar and sing along in the kitchen. Host a big Sunday night feast with our family and neighbors. Have a gathering in our home, a game night with friends, and yes, even watch sports. Enjoying it all as the good gifts of God to us. Receiving them not as entitlements, not as ours to do with what we please, not as something we’ve deserved, but as blessings from God with a posture of thanksgiving. In such a way that our gaze is drawn up in gratitude toward the Giver. Allowing our appreciation of these things to be governed by the priority of adoring God as first in our hearts and rightly ordering our loves. Not skipping church to enjoy God in nature. Not pitting other events and activities against quality time with our families and fellowship with our brothers and sisters. Not hurriedly and frantically rushing through the day to be maximally productive at the expense of being present to enjoy all this. Not lazily, idly, and purposelessly vegging out, couch-potatoing it, and streaming the rest of our day away. Start the day in worship by freshly anchoring “yourself in a supreme, full, and expanding love for God” and “then” with the precious few hours that remain, “let your enjoyment of his gifts run wild” (Joe Rigney).
Cross of Grace Church, let’s work hard to rest in God, worship him wholeheartedly, and enjoy his gifts from week to week.