What Real Saints Do on the Lord’s Day

By now, the entire world, football fans and others, knows that the New Orleans Saints are the winners of the Super Bowl.

However, am I the only one to notice the ironic nickname of the professional football team from the Crescent City?

A “saint” in the Biblical sense is someone who is “holy”— that is, a person who has been set apart by God for service unto Him.  Unlike a Roman Catholic conception of sainthood, all genuine believers in Christ are saints.

But how are saints to act?  They are to live in accordance with the moral law of God.

And that brings us to the matter of Sabbath observance.

God’s will is clear: one day in seven is to be set aside for rest and worship.  From the beginning of the world until the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that day was the seventh day of the week.  From Christ’s resurrection until the end of the world, that day is the first day of the week.

Isaiah 58:13-14 indicates God’s blessing upon Sabbath keepers: “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.  The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The Westminster Larger Catechism helps to understand how we should keep the Fourth Commandment: “The sabbath or Lord’s day is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to betaken up in works of necessity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of God’s worship: and, to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day.”

But in contemporary America, this commandment has largely been forgotten.  And it especially has been ignored among those who are church members.

Isn’t it about time that the American church repented of sponsorship of Super Bowl parties?  Isn’t it about time Christians in this country started acting like real saints?