The Sabbath

When you run a soccer program as a coach or board member, there is an important question you need to settle in your mind right up front: how will you treat the Christian Sabbath?  You really need to give this serious thought.  I once had a pastor tell me, "you can't do in seven days without a blessing what you can in six days with a blessing.'  Very true.

Our culture has dropped the idea that Sunday should be different.  I heard a preacher once say he didn't even know why we did worship on Sunday.  That guy was lost in his thinking and shouldn't have been in the pulpit.  This is typical of our culture loosing it's way.  At best we're just following what the culture tells us to do - not having thought about how Sunday fits into the Christian thinking, and at worst we have rejected the guidance of scripture deliberately.  There are two extremes at play here.  The first is that there is a legalistic approach that says, 'no sports on Sunday', and actually the list is much longer, no this, no that, and no to the other thing.  A long list.  The other end of extreme is that anything goes, which is really that we haven't thought about it.  Both are wrong and don't help us.

I can't layout all the doctrine regarding the Sabbath, but here's what I know:

We can't look to society to tell us how we should see and use the Sabbath.  Today's society has turned the Sabbath into another day to do stuff, our stuff, so we really need to think about this from a biblical perspective.  Our natural tendency is to be selfish and the Sabbath can be taken over by that selfishness.

The whole gospel story is around God coming to us when we we're totally and absolutely clueless about who God is and what he expects of us.  Totally.  In every way.  Clueless in the largest sense.  And that didn't change when He got our attention.  We continually need to rely on God to give us direction.  What we 'think' may be part of that cluelessness.  We rely heavily on the bible to provide instruction on all kinds of topics from worship practices, to relationships and to the Sabbath.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Israel was punished one year for every Sabbath they didn't keep.  So the Sabbath must be pretty important to God.  The Sabbath looked back to the completion of creation and looked forward to the coming of the Savior.  The Israelite couldn't see clearly what that coming meant.  We do.

It's interesting that we see the breakup of the family and the deterioration of society morals at the same time we have given up keeping the Sabbath.  There is a lot at stake here for our children.

There's one place in the bible where we see that God needed to heal the land from Israel's neglect of the Sabbath.  Not only does it impact our children, families, nation, and culture, but it also impacts the creation.  Maybe being a good environmentalist and steward of the world, starts with an understanding of the Sabbath.

All this is connected: family, salvation, creation, church, worship, the Sabbath.  All of it.  We can't compartmentalize one aspect of the Christian faith. 

So you can see this is bigger than just 'don't do sports on Sunday'.  There is something deep and important here that I'm totally incapable of drawing out it's richness.

Listen, I don't always to the Sabbath well.  It's a struggle.  Sometimes I'm lazy.  Sometimes I'm legalistic.  Sometimes I'm forgetful.  But that's where Jesus comes in - there's forgiveness and there are answers for those who ask.

So here's my advice:

Pray about how to use the Sabbath.

Do some reading.  Search the bible for references on the Sabbath and see what the bible has to say about this.

Read what others have said, try searching for "Westminster Confession of Faith Sabbath", it will be chapter 21.  Look at other works.  Stand on the shoulders of giants and don't just settle for "I think".

I would strong recommend protecting the Sabbath for you and your family.  Don't schedule soccer games and practices on this day.  Once in a while as a family activity is fine, but don't get sucked into using the Sabbath as another day to do your stuff.

Bottom line: You will impact your family, your children, and future generations based on how you keep the Sabbath.  Think through this carefully.  You got six other days to do soccer, stick to that.