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Aug 07, 2022

Storied Rest

Storied Rest

Passage: Deuteronomy 5:12-15

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Life in Ten Words

Collectively we spend billions each year trying to find that coveted but elusive thing called rest. At the same time we spend countless hours laboring, not only to make ends meet, but to find some deep kind of satisfaction–something like a deep inner contentment one might associate with rest. The fourth commandment calls for a regular rest–not just from our labor and not just for the good of the laboring we take up afterward. The idea of rest is such a central feature in the storyline of scripture that the command to stand down is really out to help us have not just a break, but a storied rest.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Genesis 1:31, 2:3; Psalm 127:1, 2
LEADER: And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. . . Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
PEOPLE: So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
LEADER: Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil;
ALL: for he gives to his beloved sleep.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH/SCRIPTURE READING/CORPORATE PRAYER:) Ecclesiastes 2:20-23, Isaiah 40:28-31
Ecclesiastes 2:20-23 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

Isaiah 40:28-31 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint...

CENTRAL TEXT: Deuteronomy 5:12-15/Mark 2:23-28
Deut. 5:12 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

Mark 2:23 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” 27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

BENEDICTION: Matthew 11:29
LEADER: Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
The peace of the Lord be with you.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Psalm 95
  • Psalm 127
  • Amos 8:11
  • Ephesians 2:1-8
  • Hebrews 4:1-10

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Is there something you do, or someplace you are that typically offers you a sense of peace? What or where (or with whom) is that? Why do you think so?
  2. The command is addressed to a variety of people. What does that list suggest about how Israel was to think of itself as a people?
  3. The Exodus outline of the commandments has the fact that God rested on the seventh day of creation as the basis for this fourth commandment. While here in Deuteronomy, Moses ties this commandment to the fact that Israel once was enslaved but now has been freed. How does citing that historical experience suggest there is more to this commandment than simply being physically refreshed for another week of labor?
  4. Though it might seem a bit dramatic way of putting it, to what might you feel enslaved sometimes? That is, what do you feel a compulsion to do, achieve, complete, etc that you’d have a hard time relenting from, even for a regular brief, stint?
  5. The sermon mentioned several things the New Testament argues we are enslaved to. What were they? How would this fourth commandment serve to 
  6. What does Jesus’s encounter in Mark 2 reveal concerning a misunderstanding of the sabbath? How does he correct that misunderstanding?
  7. The sermon suggested three parts to a truer honoring of the Sabbath: preparation, abstention, and attention. How does that trio of priorities work together– “need” each other?

Illustrations

InView Media 8.07.22 Album

QUOTES:

  • Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning. - Bill Gates
  • Nothing less than a command has the power to intervene in the vicious, accelerating, self-perpetuating cycle of faithless and graceless busy-ness. - Eugene Peterson
  • My boyfriend, a South African, was completely disgusted. “You Americans don’t know how to rest,” he said. “You rest only to work better.” It’s true. And it underpins our current obsession with sleep: We want to sleep more now not because we value sleep more on its own terms, but because we are so fixated on productivity. - Eve Fairbanks
  • Closed on Sunday, you're my Chick-fil-A
    Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A
    Hold the selfies, put the 'Gram away
    Get your family, y'all hold hands and pray
    When you got daughters, always keep 'em safe
    Watch out for vipers, don't let them indoctrinate
    Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A
    You're my number one, with the lemonade
    Raise our sons, train them in the faith
    Through temptations, make sure they're wide awake
    Follow Jesus, listen and obey
    No more livin' for the culture, we nobody's slave “Closed on Sunday,”
    -     Kanye West
  • Most of us want to be force, but Jesus calls us to be a taste. - Dave Murray (cited in Andy Crouch’s The Life We’re Looking For)

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