Introduction
For most of us, we delight in getting ready for certain days. There is something deeply gratifying about the ritual-like activity required in preparation for a vacation or gameday. We ought to expect some measure of pleasure in the preparation for a delightful or restful event. For believers in Christ, how much more should this be true for one particular day given to us! A regular day given to us to be the best day of our week. That day is Sunday—the Lord’s Day.
If we’re honest, we don’t think much about preparation for the Lord’s Day. Sunday comes and Sunday goes. We’re satisfied if we have made it to the church service to sing the hymns and hear some preaching. For many of us, if we do think about preparation for the Lord’s Day, it is likely tinged with more dread than delight and more apathy than joyful anticipation. Getting everyone in the house ready (let alone ourselves) for Sunday morning service seems filled with more stress, strain, and hassle than most other days.
However, as Reformed Christians, we have deep wells of biblical instruction and confessional language marking out how we ought to prepare for the Lord’s Day. From these deep wells, we can draw out the necessity and manner of preparing for the Lord’s Day. In this article, I will discuss the necessity of preparing for the Lord’s Day. In a second article, we will look at the manner.
The Necessity of Preparing for the Lord’s Day
First, the necessity of preparing for the Lord’s Day follows from God’s design for the Day.
There is no other day like the Lord’s Day. God commands us in His moral law to remember a full day by setting it apart from all other days (Exodus 20:8). That Day is called by different names: “the Sabbath,” “the Christian Sabbath,” and “the Lord’s Day.”
This particular day of the week changed from the last day of the week to the first with the resurrection of Christ. (1) But, from the beginning, the Lord has ordered the keeping of this Day in accordance with His own design. The design is quite simply the reorientation of the person (the whole person—body and soul) unto his or her Creator and Redeemer. Because autonomy and selfishness pervade the sinful self, the Lord’s Day serves to call man back from reliance upon self unto a right dependence upon and worship of the One True and Living God.
For this reason, a holy rest and purposeful worship are the chief designs for the Day. Westminster Larger Catechism (WLC) 117 says:
“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 be taken up in works of necessity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of God’s worship.”
This is the summary blueprint for the Lord’s Day.
There is to be holy resting. This holy rest is not idleness or laziness. It is not doing whatever we might like due to extra time off from other duties. It does not mean extra time to catch up on “worldly employments and recreations” or my personal pursuits. It is holy resting. That is, a resting from otherwise lawful, good activities for continual training of our hearts to remember that we depend upon God alone for “life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). The Day reminds us that we are creatures with limited resources of time, energy, and strength. The Lord, He is God; we are not (1 Kings 18:39). Just as the cry of the baby is a reminder of her dependence upon her mother for all things pertaining to life, so resting on the Lord’s Day is a regular cry of man’s dependence on Another for all things pertaining to life—namely, the Lord God.
There is also to be purposeful worship—making it our delight to spend the whole time in public and private exercises of God’s Worship. The Lord’s people are to prioritize the public gathering of Christians for the worship of God (Acts 2:42, Hebrews 10:24-25). Dennis Louis, in his sermon during this year’s General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, proclaimed: “There is nothing more important than the worship of the living God.” (2) There is nothing better, nothing of greater value or worth, nothing that ought to be more delightful than the worship of God with the gathered people of God on the Day that God has given. To worship God with His people is the summit, the pinnacle, the crescendo to begin each week.
The psalmist sings, “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness” (84:10). What could possibly be better than to be with God’s people worshipping the One who is high and lifted up, whose name is above every name, who holds all things together by the word of his power? God is to be worshiped and glorified every day in all that we do (1 Corinthians 10:31). But, He sets apart one Day each week to be the ignition that fires the pistons of true spiritual worship in the heart of His people.
This purposeful worship also includes private exercises of God’s worship. This is what gives particular shape to the holy rest for the Day. Private exercise of worship does not mean that an individual or family holds a formal worship service throughout the remainder of the day. (3) It should mean that every activity of the Day serves to aid the Day’s design. If reading books, the reading should encourage our contemplation of Christ’s character and work. If playing games, it should encourage godly fellowship and conversation. If going for a walk, the walk should aid our reflection and conversation upon the good Creator and His care for all life. If throwing a ball around in the back yard, it should be for the purpose of helping a child expend energy so that he or she can practice their own rest and be able to remain more focused during an evening worship service. The Day is the Lord’s. We are to seek our delight in Him, not in going after our own pleasures and our own ways (Isaiah 58:13-14). Ultimately, the principle is that the whole day should be treated as distinct from other days unto the end of delighting in the LORD God.
It is because of this design that preparation for the day is necessary. We ought not stumble our way into the Day. In almost every place that the Westminster Standards summarize the biblical doctrine of the Lord’s Day or elements of worship, it does so together with a call for preparation. Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) 21.8 connects preparation with God’s design for the Day, writing that “This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts; but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship.” WLC 160 says that “it is required of those that hear the Word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer.” WLC 171 says that “they that receive the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, are, before they come, to prepare themselves thereunto.” Do you see the repeated emphasis on preparation? If the Day is to be taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of the worship of God, it is incumbent upon us to make ready for it. There must be preparation for keeping God’s design for the Day.
Second, the necessity of preparing for the Lord’s Day follows from our distraction on the Day.
We are easily distractible people. We keep little distraction devices almost always near us. When not in our hands, we keep them close by in our pockets and purses. We keep them before us upon our desks and dashboards. But we were easily distracted even before the intrusion of smartphones. Part of the problem of our sin is our lack of dogged diligence in what is actually best for us. We get distracted by lesser things. C.S. Lewis speaks about the effects of sin on human desires when he writes that we are “like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (4) Yet, I think his words can also speak to our Lord’s Day distraction problem.
We have been given a Day like no other day. Jesus himself said that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Jesus says these words in the context of man-made rules for keeping the Sabbath. (5) Rules that seem to include step counters and general grumpiness. Man was not made for that Sabbath. But the Sabbath was made for man. Our good God gives good gifts. We have been given a Day that is like a holiday at the sea. We are far too apt to be content with the mud pies of our own pursuits and pleasures on the Day. We are distracted by them. Our attention to the right use of the good Day (and to the good Giver of the Day) is drawn away by them.
We are too easily distracted by the allure of a couple extra hours of Sunday morning sleep after playing hard the night before. We are too easily taken in by the call of a Sunday afternoon round of 18 holes with our golfing buddies or keeping up with a favorite NFL team (our fantasy football success depends on it!). We far too quickly excuse ourselves with thoughts of how important it is to “keep up our grades” as we open our textbook to study for what we’ve known was coming Monday morning. Set before us is a grand feast every Lord’s Day. Our problem is that on the way to it, we are too easily drawn to the bag of stale chips in the pantry.
If we find coolness or little stirrings in our hearts at this call to the grandness of the worship of God on the Day, might it be because we come to the Day too distracted by other things? Might it be that our distraction is sapping our delight in the Lord himself?
Conclusion
The Lord God has given us His Day as a gracious gift. The gracious gift requires both our careful use of it and preparation for it. Because of God’s good design for the Day and our tendency to be distracted by lesser things, let us come ready to consider the manner of preparing for the Lord’s Day. I will unpack the manner in an upcoming article.
(1) Westminster Confession of Faith 21.7 teaches that the Day “from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.”
(2) Sermon by Dennis Louis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfsFzDy9G5Y, accessed on August 29th, 2025.
(3) It can mean a period devoted to family worship, so long as family worship does not detract from attending corporate worship.
(4) C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses (revised 1980; New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 26.
(5) The Pharisees catch Jesus’ disciples plucking heads of grain while walking through a field on the Sabbath day. In their minds, the disciples have engaged in “work,” and this is an obvious breaking of the fourth commandment (Exodus 20:9-11). Some scholars note that the Pharisees had laws limiting how many steps were allowed on the Sabbath, and it is possible that this jaunt by Jesus and his disciples only added fuel to the fire. Either way, when the Pharisees bring the matter to Jesus, He recognizes the deeper sin problem taking hold in their heart. They have missed God’s gracious gift of the Sabbath to man for the safety and self-congratulations of “go this far and no further.” Where God has given a gift, they see only another chance to improve their grade. Jesus exposes this heart condition when he tells them that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Most of us do not have excessive laws for the keeping of the Sabbath day like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, but like them, we far too easily miss the good gift of the Day.
