Week 12 – Exodus 20:8-11 (Part III)
Receive and Reflect (20 mins):
Reflect on your time since you last met. How has God been answering your prayers?
Pray and thank God that He is a God who listens and who loves us enough to seek the best for us. Ask that He would speak to you.
Read (20 mins):
Read Exodus 20:8-11
The Sabbath is God’s good design for us in this life, but it also points forward to an ultimate fulfilment (Heb 3:7-4:11). Heaven, our ultimate promised land, is pictured as a place where we will finally have unbroken Sabbath rest. It would not be right to picture it as an endless holiday (because work is also God’s good design for us), rather it is the rest (physical, spiritual, mental, emotional) we will finally enjoy when we have unbroken fellowship with God. In a similar way to the way that sin has make work toil, it has also made rest restless. We cannot enjoy God’s presence and love and provision, and so we try to be God, we try to find value, we try to gather for ourselves. And this striving will never be enough. We will continually be hustling, our hearts and minds unable to rest, even if we have stopped working.
We will only be able to rest to the extent that we worship God truly.
- How does knowing who God is and remembering what God has done help us to rest?
- What attributes or actions of God do you need internalise to help you to rest?
- Who/what is most impacted by your refusal to rest? How can you take steps towards building patterns of Sabbath rest into your life?
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.