Sabbath: More Important and Less Religious Than You Think

We live in a world that never stops. Notifications, emails, endless scrolling, the pressure to do more, be more, achieve more—it’s exhausting. And if we’re not careful, we get swept along by the current, filling every spare moment with something, without ever stopping to ask whether the life we’re living is the one we actually want.

Jesus told us that life—real life—is found in Him. Not just after we die, but right now. When He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), He wasn’t just talking about salvation; He was talking about a way of living. A way that is radically different from what the world pushes on us. And if we want to follow Jesus, we need to train ourselves to live His way.

We understand this in other areas of life. You don’t become physically fit by accident—you train for it. You don’t sit at a piano and expect to play beautifully without practicing scales. Training is something you do so that you can do something else. The same is true in our spiritual lives.

And one of the most important ways we train ourselves to live in step with Jesus is through Sabbath.

Sabbath is not just about taking a break. It’s about making a deliberate choice to stop, to set boundaries, to recognize that life is not about constant striving, but about being present with God. It’s about remembering that we are not defined by what we do, but by who we are loved by.

In Hebrews 4, we are told to “make every effort to enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:11). That sounds like a contradiction—why would rest take effort? But if you’ve ever tried to actually slow down, put your phone away, stop checking emails, and be fully present, you know it doesn’t happen by accident.

We are surrounded by a world that is designed to pull us away from rest. The average Australian spends 5.5 hours a day on their phone, which adds up to 16 years of their life staring at a screen. And it’s not just our phones. In 1986, the total amount of information the average person consumed in a day—including TV, radio, and newspapers—was the equivalent of 40 newspapers. By 2007, that number had increased to 174 newspapers. That was before social media.

Our modern economy is designed for endless consumption. Corporations are constantly looking for ways to keep us working more, buying more, consuming more. Johann Hari describes how economic growth requires either new people to sell things to or the same people to buy more. That means companies are constantly finding ways to make us feel like we need more. They even blur the lines between work and rest—watching TV isn’t enough anymore, you should also be on social media discussing the show. More screens, more content, more advertising.

And so, we live faster and faster lives without stopping to question if this is the life we were made for.

Sabbath is a practice that helps us push back against that.

When God first commanded Israel to observe the Sabbath, He gave two different reasons.

In Exodus 20, He pointed to creation: “For in six days the LORD made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day He rested.” (Exodus 20:11). If the Creator of the universe took a day to stop, who are we to think we don’t need one?

But in Deuteronomy 5, the reason shifts. This time, God tells Israel to keep the Sabbath because they had been slaves in Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:15). A slave is someone whose time is not their own. But now, they were free.

That’s the heart of Sabbath. It is a declaration of freedom.

When you stop and rest, you are saying, “I am not a slave. My worth is not in my productivity. My identity is not in my work. I can stop, because God is in control.”

But the problem is, we don’t always realize we are slaves.

A slave is someone whose behavior is determined by an external power. Today, we are subtly controlled by work demands, technology, and social media algorithms designed to keep us addicted. Sean Parker, one of Facebook’s founding executives, admitted that social media was built to consume as much of your time and attention as possible. It was designed to make us slaves.

And without clear boundaries, we become passive in our own lives. We don’t choose how we spend our time—life just happens to us.

Jesus confronted this issue head-on. By the time He walked the earth, the Pharisees had turned Sabbath into a burden—a set of rigid rules rather than a gift of rest. When they accused His disciples of breaking the Sabbath, Jesus reminded them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

This is why Sabbath can’t become a religious obligation. Anytime we take something that is meant to help us focus on God and make it an end in itself, we lose the point.

This is why we don’t need to be caught up in debates about which day Sabbath should be observed. Some argue that Christians should still meet on Saturdays, as in the Old Testament, and that Sunday worship was introduced by the Roman Emperor Constantine. But history tells a different story.

The early church began meeting on Sundays, not because of a decree from Rome, but because that was the day Jesus rose from the dead. Acts 20:7 tells us that the believers gathered on the first day of the week to break bread. In 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul instructed the church to set aside offerings on the first day of the week. Revelation 1:10 speaks of “the Lord’s Day,” which early Christians understood to mean Sunday.

This shift wasn’t about abandoning Sabbath—it was about centering everything on Jesus.

We live in a world where all the lines have been blurred. Work and rest have merged. We are always available, always connected, always on. But without boundaries, we drift into a life of exhaustion.

Isaiah 58:13 says, “Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight.” That’s the heart of Sabbath. It’s not about rules. It’s about creating space to delight in God.

Sabbath is also not just about personal rest—it is about community. One of the greatest losses of our overworked culture is that we no longer make time for deep relationships. Shared meals, unhurried conversations, and life-giving connection are becoming rare. But Sabbath was always meant to create space for both rest and togetherness.

For some, Sabbath might mean observing a full day of rest—a day where work stops, phones are put away, and space is made for joy, family, and worship. For others, it might mean small daily practices—a morning coffee spent in quiet with God, a commitment to stopping work at a certain time each evening, or setting firm limits on screen time.

Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). But we will never experience that life if we don’t slow down enough to notice it.

So, how are you doing with rest?

Have you set clear boundaries in your life?

If not, maybe now is the time to start.

Not because you have to. Not because it’s a rule. But because Sabbath was made for you.