Here is a sermon I preached some time ago on the subject of Sabbath observance from Mark 2:23-28. Enjoy!
“A few years ago a friend telephoned me with an urgent request” writes Philip Ryken. “‘Phil’, he said, ‘I’m calling to ask a favor. I need the most precious thing you have’.” (Philip Ryken, Written in Stone, pp 101) What do you think he was asking for? The most precious thing he had? It was some of his time of course. Time is a precious commodity. We have to prioritize what we can and can’t do with our time. In fact, I’m sure you’ll agree that the way we use the limited time resources available to us says a great deal about the true priorities about our lives. How we invest our time unmasks what is really dear to us. It is a sad and alarming mark of the contemporary church’s true spiritual condition, therefore, to observe that Sunday has been reduced to the Lord’s hour instead of the Lord’s Day.
Now there are those who resist the idea that one day in seven is to be set apart wholly to God, for the spiritual benefits of our souls. It is too hefty a tax on my time, we tell ourselves. Sunday is ‘me-time’, and you’ll be restricting my enjoyment of ‘me-time’ if you call me to set the day apart for ‘God’. It is enough for me to turn up at church, surely? By mid-day I feel I have paid my religious dues. And after that my time is mine, to be spent in whatever way I prefer, and God had best keep his hands off.