Deuteronomy 5:15 “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”

The evangelical nature (in the sense of gospel-centered, not a reference to a modern movement in Christianity) of God’s claim on our time and concern for our rest, even in the Old Testament, is clear from his final comments to his people about the reason he gave the Sabbath. This opportunity for rest was provided by his personal intervention.

“Remember that you were slaves in Egypt.” Not much rest there. Is there any condition that more nearly approaches the opposite of rest than slavery? Not only did Pharaoh take away their freedom and force them into hard labor. Not only did he continue to make their work harder and add to their work when Moses asked him to let Israel go. He refused to allow them even to go worship God in the desert and come back. The very kinds of rest God intended to provide with the Sabbath–for body and soul–Pharaoh denied God’s people.

So the Lord intervened personally. He delivered them. He brought them out of Egypt and brought them to their own land. And he gave them a day on which to remember the kind of loving and saving God they had. Do you know what day God established the Passover, and sent the angel of death through Egypt, and set them free? It was the fourteenth day, the second Saturday, the Sabbath. In a sense, every Sabbath was a little celebration, a little remembrance, of the Lord leading them from slavery to rest.

It is for similar reasons we Christians rest from our work and gather on Sundays when we can. No rule forces us to use this day. But God personally intervened to set our souls free from sin and death when Jesus died and then rose again on the first day of the week, on Sunday. It is a day to remember the kind of loving and saving God we have–a little celebration or remembrance of the Lord leading us from slavery to rest.

You and I are New Testament Christians. We aren’t bound to a particular day of the week. But that doesn’t mean God has given up his claim on our time. We have plenty of time to work. Don’t let it come between you and God’s gift of rest.