In Matthew 12:8, Jesus claims to be the Lord of the Sabbath. Since Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, our Sabbath-keeping has to be Christ-centred; second, our Sabbath-keeping has to be Christ-modelled.

A Christ-Centred Sabbath⤒🔗

Having a Christ-centred Sabbath will mean that we will enjoy the ministry of Jesus. How can this happen today?

Our forefathers helpfully summarised the activities of Jesus on behalf of His people under the roles of prophet, priest and king, and in these activities He works by the Holy Spirit. When we have a Christ-centred Sabbath, as our prophet, He will convey information to us about His kingdom. As our priest, He will express His sympathy for us as we are tempted by the devil and opposed by the world, and He will convey comfort and encouragement to us. As our king, He will display His power and authority in enabling us to serve Him and in defending us from losing out on these blessings.

These activities of Jesus come to us through our involvement in both public and private worship. We are not to limit the actions of Jesus and our fellowship with Him to what takes place in church services. Instead we are to structure our Sabbath activities so that we can experience the blessing of Jesus throughout the day.

Many Christians have stress because of what they do between Monday and Saturday; therefore the Lord’s Day is often used by them for sleeping extra hours. Yet the stress is still there on the following Monday. I am not saying that it is inappropriate for a person to spend an hour longer in bed on the Lord’s Day. Yet I am saying that idleness is inappropriate on the Lord’s Day and it is not a helpful means of a Christian recharging his or her batteries.

The way our minds get rest is not by thinking about nothing, but by thinking about something different. On the Lord’s Day we have the opportunity of Jesus instructing us about the things of God, and He assures us that when we learn from Him we will find rest to our souls (Matthew 11:28-30). Listening to Jesus throughout a Christ-centred Sabbath will help restore our stressed minds.

Similarly, the emotions of people today are often in turmoil. Does having a Christ-centred Sabbath help them? In John 14:21-23, Jesus promises that obedience to His commandments (one of which concerns the Sabbath) will lead to a greater sense of His presence, and His Father’s presence, in our hearts. A Christ-centred Sabbath reaps great blessings spiritually and psychologically.

A Christ-Modelled Sabbath←⤒🔗

Secondly, Jesus is not only our Master whom we obey on the Sabbath, He is our model for how to work out His commandments. In Mark 2:21-35, there is an account of how Jesus kept a Sabbath. We are told that He went to the synagogue where He taught, and where He healed a demon-possessed man; then He went to the home of Simon and Andrew for food and fellowship, and there He healed Peter’s mother-in-law; then in the evening, He healed multitudes after that, He went and prayed.

We should imitate Jesus and attend public worship. If any person could have been excused attending public worship with sinners, it was Jesus. After all, He was sinless and the other worshippers were sinful; He was informed about the God who was being worshipped and they were uninformed; He was there totally focused on God and many of them were focused on other matters. Yet He delighted to attend the public worship of God.

In addition we should imitate Jesus and spend time with the people of God in a less formal manner: He spent time with the families of Peter and Andrew, and with His other disciples. This is an opportunity to enjoy the provision of God for our bodies and for our souls. It is an opportunity to focus together informally on the things of God.

Then we should imitate Jesus and help those in need. Obviously we do not possess His miraculous powers of healing. Yet the absence of such ability does not mean that we can ignore the hurting. In whatever way we can, we should share the blessings of the gospel with them. Often these problems come to people’s lives in God’s providence in order for His people to have opportunities of helping them.

Finally, we should commit the affairs of the day to God in secret prayer. I am certain that Jesus would have begun the Sabbath in secret prayer. At its close, when all had become quiet, He found a place where He could pray. No doubt, He would have prayed about what was ahead. Yet I also suspect that His prayers would have concerned what had taken place on that Sabbath in Capernaum.

Have you ever counted how many Sabbaths there are in a year? There are 52, which makes seven and a half weeks or almost two months of Sabbaths. If we kept the Sabbath in a Christ-centred way, we would spend two months of each year in intimate fellowship with Him. It is not surprising that countless Christians have regarded Sabbath-keeping as a foretaste of heaven, as the day above all other occasions when they had the sweetest contact with the risen Saviour.