Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Exodus 20:8-11 (NIV)

As a kid, I vaguely remember a couple Sunday School lessons that dealt with the issue of Sabbath, as well as a few fiery sermons about not mowing your lawn on Sunday. After I became a Christ follower years later, I remember discussions with friends and mentors about the Sabbath that seemed to advocate faithful church attendance in the morning and evening around an afternoon of solitude and sleep. In other words, I came to understand Sabbath as a set of rules. But, there was something about those rules that made Sundays kind of depressing for me because I felt guilty when I did something I really enjoyed on that day.

A few days ago, I had a conversation with a good friend and theologian about the above text from Exodus. He said, “Tim, the Fourth Commandment was not an ‘early heads up’ about faithful church attendance, but an invitation to relationship with God!” In other words, Sabbath was never been meant to present a legalistic restriction in life, but instead to point out, and perpetuate a liberating relationship with God.

As a way of life, the Sabbath calls us to trust God in a way unlike the rest of the world (see Matthew 6:32-33). Do we have the courage to know and trust the Lord in a way so that people stop calling us hypocrites because of our hectic, stress-filled lives, and start asking us about the hope that we have (1 Peter 3:15)? And remember, it wasn’t the first century Christ followers at Antioch that claimed for themselves the name “Christian”, it was the people around them who called them Christians (Acts 11:26)!

If the desire to be called a Christ follower resonates in you, what will it take for you to begin living a Sabbath way of life through which the reign of Jesus will be seen unmistakably by others?

Care to share?