Week 10 – Exodus 20:8-11 (Part I)
Receive and Reflect (20 mins):
Reflect on your time since you last met. What beauty have you seen in God?
Pray and thank God that all goodness and beauty have their origin in Him. Ask that He would speak to you.
Read (20 mins):
Read Exodus 20:8-11
The Sabbath commandment is maybe one of the most overlooked of the ten, and it is often misunderstood. Our world pushes us to achieve more and more. Our value is often tied to our productivity. Our mindset is that we run the world. In the Sabbath command, we are forced to face (practically!) the lies that we believe about God, the world and our place in it. God runs the world, not us. Our work and rest are both good gifts given for our flourishing. Our value is found in the eyes of our God, and not in our productivity.
The Sabbath, far from being an irrelevant anomaly – some sort of strange way that ancient Israelites lived – is repeated through the Bible and applied not just to people, but to farming (letting the land lie fallow), to ancestral lands (returning ancestral lands) and to debt (release). It is God’s good way of curbing our desire to selfishly build up wealth for ourselves at the expense of the land itself and others in our community. The command’s expansion in verse 10 specifically prohibits us from resting at the expense of others’ work.
- What does “rest” look like to you?
- Does your concept of “rest” change when you consider God’s command to keep it holy?
- Does your concept of “rest” change when you consider God’s command that your rest should not be at the expense of anyone else’s work?
- We live in quite different times to the ancient Israelites, and it may be easy to dismiss the Sabbath commandment as irrelevant or impractical. Why is this command still good for us today?
Respond (20 mins):
Spend a few minutes in personal reflection. What is the Holy Spirit impressing on your heart?
Take time to share how the Holy Spirit is challenging you. How can you be accountable to each other? Consider keeping a record for the purposes of prayer and accountability.
Pray for each other.