Dear Family of God,
Are you longing for rest? When the alarm rings in the morning do you hit the snooze craving just
10 more minutes of rest? Often we fool ourselves into thinking that we can keep going day in
and day out without stopping to rest, but that was never God’s design for us, even before sin
entered the world. In fact, He showed us by example how we should pattern our week. In
Genesis we read that after the Lord finished creating all things He rested. After the fall, man’s
work became more difficult and the need for physical rest became even more important. In fact,
the Lord even makes it a command. In Exodus 20:8-11, the longest Commandment, the Lord
says:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep 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, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or
your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Tied to this physical rest is a call to focus our attention on the spiritual rest we also need and the
ultimate rest we look forward to. Therefore, in our family visits this year, we will be focusing our
attention on the Lord’s Day as a continuation of the Old Testament Sabbath.
In Isaiah, God shows us His desire that we find delight in honoring His holy day. He says:
"If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it,
not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall
take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed
you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
Isaiah 58:13-14
Jesus further explains God’s purpose of setting one day in seven aside in order to bless us. Jesus
answers the Pharisee’s criticism of the disciple’s failure to keep the Sabbath as they required by
saying:
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord
even of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27-28
Jesus’ point was that it was for our blessing that God instituted a Sabbath. Matthew Henry in his
commentary on this passage says:
The Sabbath is a sacred and divine institution; but we must receive and embrace it as a
privilege and a benefit, not as a task and a drudgery . . . God never designed it to be an
imposition upon us, and therefore we must not make it so to ourselves.
Throughout the Bible we see that God is very serious about a day of rest and worship and we
should be too. Some passages in the Old Testament regarding the Sabbath are: Ex 31:12-17,
Nehemiah 10:28-31, Jeremiah 17:19-27 and Amos 8:5. In the New Testament we see this theme
continued as well as a transition from the last to the first day of the week: Mark 1:21, Luke 4:16,
Acts 13:13-15, Acts 20:7, Hebrews 4:8-10, 1 Corinthians 16:2 and Revelation 1:9-10. The
Biblical pattern of honoring one day a week as special is clear, and while there may be some
difference of opinion among fellow believers as to what constitutes keeping the Lord’s Day holy,
here are some questions we might ask ourselves:




Am I resting from my physical labors on the Lord’s Day? If not, how could I rearrange
my schedule to accomplish this?
How do I view Sunday? How is it special?
Should it be a day of recreation?
Ultimately, how is the Lord’s Day delightful to me?
One of the great blessings we have as believers is the privilege of gathering from week to week
for corporate worship. The goal of this gathering should be the nourishment of our souls as well
as Christian fellowship.
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!” Psalm 122:1





Do you look forward to worship from week to week?
How are you being nourished spiritually at PURC?
How important is it to you to gather for both services? If it is not, why not?
How is your Christian fellowship at PURC?
What could you do to increase your fellowship and be a blessing to PURC?
We look forward to our visit with you and pray that it will be mutually encouraging. May God
bless us as together we strive to bring honor and glory to Him with our lives.