September 17 - LD 38, Day 1: Busy on the Lord’s Day

Deuteronomy 5:12 - "Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.”

Do you live with a fervent desire for the Sabbath rest? If our obedience to the law of God is to be honest obedience, true obedience, the reflection of a spiritual life in Christ, that is the question we must face. We may not think that we have obeyed God's law in the fourth commandment, if we have gone to church on Sunday only. As children of our heavenly Father, as those delivered from the bondage of sin and death, we stand before the law. That law, therefore, is a light upon our pathway, a guide to the life that we want to live in thankfulness to God Who has so loved us. So also do we view this fourth commandment. The Sabbath rest, for us, is far more than an obligatory appearance in church on Sunday. Worship in God’s house, even if it is true worship, is only the beginning of the Sabbath rest. That is evident from our Heidelberg Catechism's exposition of the fourth commandment.

It is striking that the Catechism, in its consideration of this commandment, doesn't even mention the negative part which forbids Sunday labor. Ex 20:10 emphasizes that on the Sabbath day, we shall not do any work. Six days thou shalt labor (another positive Christian calling); but not on this day. In fact, you may not even have employees doing work for you on the Sabbath day. So says the fourth commandment. But the Catechism doesn't even mention that. That does not mean that the negative part of the law no longer applies. There is no approval given to working on Sunday. Not at all. But the approach is entirely different. The approach is positive. It isn't to say, "Don't." Rather, it tells us that we are to be so busy in other things on the Lord's Day, that we don't have time for work. We don't have time even for earthly pleasures.

What could keep us so busy on the Lord's Day? This: Enjoying fellowship with our God through Jesus Christ and laboring to enter into the spiritual rest which He has given us on the Sabbath day, which, since the resurrection of Christ, is now the first day of the week.