Christians Need to Take the Sabbath Seriously
Scrolling through social media before going to church this past Sunday, I was struck by the strong grip that the NFL has on Americans, Christians included. Scott Hanson, who hosts NFL RedZone, was so ecstatic about the first NFL Sunday of the new season that he posted the following on X: “The alarm was set for 4:30am. My body woke me up at 4:29. Let’s do this! #NFLRedZone.” “Christian” is the first word listed in Hanson’s X bio. A cursory search of his account over the past couple months yielded not a single mention of going to church on Sunday, or anything distinctly Christian.
To put it bluntly, sports is an idol for Americans. As Pastor Mark Jones once wrote, “If there’s one thing I know from attending a Big Ten school to play soccer, it is this: don’t mess with Americans and their sports. If we don’t think we have a problem with the idolatry of sports, then we’re borderline insane.” If you don’t believe this, imagine your pastor saying something mildly negative about the NFL during a sermon, and then note your church’s attendance the following week.
With the proliferation of sports leagues for kids and professional sports games that are played all day on Sunday, worship can quickly become a second-tier priority, an item that needs to be checked off your list rather than a time for the saints to gather and worship the Holy God of the universe.
“We’ll tweet, post on Facebook, etc., a great deal about the game,” Jones argues, “but will we discuss the sermon with our children or re-open the Scriptures on Super Bowl Sunday (or any other Sunday, for that matter)?”
Though there are certainly legalistic churches that dot the American landscape, the clear problem in our country is a deep-seated antinomianism. Taking God’s law seriously is often conflated with legalism, good works are barely viewed even as evidence of faith, much less required of Christians, and the idea of resting in Christ’s finished work seems to clash in the minds of some Christians with the duties and obligations they have.
Unsurprisingly, Sunday worship becoming something irreverent, silly, and superficial has caused many Christians to take it far less seriously. Turning worship into a loud concert with a self-help message absent the orderly administration of the sacraments has not borne much fruit. All told, decoupling the modern church from the historic church has been a disaster. Even faithful Christians will be catechized into thinking that weekly worship is something that can be safely missed every so often, especially while on vacation. This can even spur the thought that attending church in person isn’t all that necessary, a lesson that countless churches taught during and after the COVID shutdown.
But we must remind ourselves that a high view of worship suffuses the entire Bible. In the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses teaches the following regarding the Fourth Commandment: “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.” Acts 18 records St. Paul going to the synagogue each Sabbath “trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.” And verse 10 of the first chapter of Revelation calls all Christians to be in “the Spirit on the Lord’s day.”
As I wrote previously for American Reformer, “Christians should make clear on the Lord’s Day that the things of this world are penultimate to the highest good: enjoying God and glorifying Him forever.”
Is attending worship otherwise a speed bump in a day dedicated to fulfilling your own desires, wants, and needs? Do you have a habit of entering the sanctuary during the second hymn and exiting right after the benediction, looking forward to wings and drinks at your local sports bar? If these questions describe your typical Lord’s Day, you should repent, pray, and talk to your pastor.
What Mark Jones wrote about the Super Bowl should apply to every Sabbath, especially during the NFL season: “you may need to ask yourself whether your attention will be so diverted from Christ because of [football] that the day will really become the Lord’s hour, and little more.”
Even if you are not a Westminster Sabbatarian (I am not), you should take some time in the coming days to rethink your Sunday routine. Consider how your priorities teach your family and those around you. Do you still have family worship or push it aside on Sundays? Does your church cancel service at certain points throughout the year for other activities or as a “break” for the pastoral staff?
On the Lord’s Day, you should think about inviting other families over to your home for a meal. Read the passages of Scripture from the sermon you just heard and meditate on them as a family. Invest your time in reading through Bible commentaries, systematic theologies, and devotional works that look at every aspect of God’s nature and character. (Last Sunday, I began reading through John Davenant’s commentary on Colossians that’s published by Banner of Truth.) Rightly used, technology has made it easier to keep our attention focused on the things that matter on the Sabbath. You can record the big game on Sunday and watch it at some other point during the week.
I’m purposefully not making the case that you must be more outwardly excited about going to church than when you undertake any other activity—self-centered emotionalism is a real problem in modern life. But treating the Lord’s Day with reverence should not be optional. Just as the outward appearance of the church building itself, what we do on Sundays should be set apart from what we do the rest of the week.
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In New Testament times, the Sabbath is somewhat of a matter of one’s belief (see Romans 2 and Colossians 2). And so we are to respect each other despite our different views of the Sabbath during New Testament times.
But we can’t afford to stop meeting together with fellow believers. And if we take Paul seriously, we can’t afford to attack each other either. Rational review and criticism of what one has said should be clearly distinguishable from personal attacks. And more importantly, we can’t afford to forget what God has done for us. In Psalms 106:12-14, the forgetting of how God had delivered the Israelites served as a base for their giving into their desires.
And even if we keep the Sabbath kosher according to Westminster Standards, the emphasis on sports and the pride that comes with winning is something we should be leery of. For pride has more than one antonym. In the New Testament, the antonym for pride is faith. Faith and pride are cotoxic. That is because all we have comes from God’s mercy and grace.
Regardless of what Mike call himself, he is advocating for classic Reformed Sabbatarianism. Thankfully for “Christians” Sabbatarianism is not Biblical and downright legalistic. Binding one’s conscience is sinful; this used to be well known.
Seriously, what’s wrong with resting on Saturday and catechizing the kids of Tuesday? Neither the New Testament, the early Church, or first generation of Reformers approved of Sabbatarianism; and unfortunately, it is always found close at hand with antinomianism. Just look at Escondido.
Y’all enjoy your “Sabbath”, I’ll be watching my Redskins lose. Sorry, I mean Commodores. Oops, I mean Commanders.
John,
I disagree with Reformed Sabbatarianism but find no fault in fellow believers saying what they believe. We can always respond by rationally examining what they say using the Scriptures as our point of reference.
Thank you Curt, I appreciate your graceful reply. You raised a sincere and good concern around the overall worship of sports/competition in the US that John did not address. God demands all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We won’t hit that in this temporal life, but we should certainly be wide-eyed to see and admit our own idols and weaknesses. It’s clear to those it is clear to.
John, good luck to your Commanders!