Traveling Together

September 25th, 2021
by Pedro Trinidad

Spiritual Growth Resources

Intro: Traveling Together

Life can also be very hectic with busy schedules, activities, life goals, jobs, education, sports, among so many other life events. It is vital to keep a spiritual compass on hand to stay on track. While pursuing all of our goals, make sure we don’t veer off God’s path for us. Our compass can lose its position pointing North and requires recalibration to make sure we make it to our destiny.

Every week, Jesus is ready to recalibrate our spiritual compasses. Staying on track happens when we ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Sabbath becomes an acknowledgment of the daily work God is doing in us. He recalibrates our soul in a weekly collective celebration of his goodness. The recalibration also happens in his corrective work in us.

Our series continues to cover essential topics of faith and practice. This week’s study will center on the meaning of the Sabbath. If you have been a Seventh-day Adventist for a long time, you are familiar with the verses in the Bible that indicate the continued blessing and holiness of the Sabbath. In this study, we won’t be proving that Saturday is the Sabbath. Instead, we look at how Jesus said that the Sabbath is for us. On this day, He restores, heals, and renews. Thus, it makes the Sabbath day a delight.

KNOW

Read Matthew 12:9-14; Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 20:8-11; Mark 2:23-27

Where can we have the best idea of God’s intentions for the Sabbath?
- Creation
- We can go to the Commandments in Exodus 20. It still refers to what took place in Genesis. It uses the word “Remember” in the verse.
- God made it for mankind - Mark 2:27
- After God created the foundations of the earth we live in, according to chapter 1, Chapter 2 starts with what the Lord did on the seventh day.
What can we see was given to us when we were made?
- Water to drink (Genesis 2:10)
- Food to eat (Genesis 2:16)
- Air to breathe (Genesis 2:7)
- A place to live (Genesis 2:8)
- A job (Genesis 2:15, 19, 20)
- God has this giving nature and kept us in mind as He created the world we live in.  
Why would the Sabbath be mentioned in one of the 10 Commandments?
- As a reminder of creation.
- To elaborate on how the Sabbath is to be practiced
- To show that it is still a part of God’s foundation
- To acknowledge that it is holy.
- Other 
What are some proofs that the Sabbath still applies today?
- Jesus practiced it (Luke 4:16)
- Paul practiced it (13:13, 14; Acts 17:2; 18:4)
- The Apostles practiced it (Acts 16:13)
- This could mean that it is still applicable even after the crucifixion. 
What could the Sabbath represent for our lives?
- Rest
- Salvation
- Gift
- Completion - God completed creation by giving the Sabbath
- Other
If it symbolized a “gift”, would that mean man was not involved in the creation of the world we live in?
- Yes
- No
- If yes:
  - Jesus proclaimed that the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:27)
  - Man was not created until the sixth day, and still was not involved in any other works in creation.
  - When God made Eve, God used Adam, but Adam was asleep, and was not continuously working on the creation of women. 
If it represented Salvation, how might that be plausible?
- In Genesis 1, the Lord worked in the creation of the world, animals and man.
- Then as man was made, the sixth day was completed (Genesis 1:31).
- This could mean that the very first day that man experienced was the seventh day. (Genesis 2:2)
- If the first ever day that man made was the Sabbath, then REST was the first intention for man to have after God worked on the creation of the world.
- This could connect with the plan of salvation
  - God sent Jesus to redeem the world.
  - Jesus being the unblemished lamb to be the ransom for our sins (John 1:29)
  - We could not earn our salvation, but receive it as a gift from God through the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
  - We are to put our trust (we could even say Rest) on the work of God sending His Son to die for our sins. 
So what could be reasons why the Bible commands us to not work on the Sabbath?
- To acknowledge the Restoration God intended for us to have.
- To represent the freedom from slavery and the work the Israelites were burdened with, just like the freedom we have from sin.
- Sabbath rest was part of the foundation of the world that the Lord blessed (Genesis 2:3) 
What can we acknowledge Isaiah 45:1-7 is trying to mention?
- God is a generous being.
- God did all the work for our salvation and rest by the way He declared in His promised.
- God is omnipotent
- He declares what He will do
- We have not earned any of these gifts.

GROW

Which way does your compass take you when you want to grow spiritually? Just think of it for a moment (or two). On Sabbath, while at church, we may say, like we say every week, I need to make so many changes to get my life in order.

Sabbath allows you to stop, think about your life. It helps you think about the essential things of life and the excuses that keep us from growing. Yet, it is so hard to do those very things that we don’t want to do.

Why not start with the basic things? Take time to pray and read the Bible every day for several minutes during your preferred time. For those times that you have set aside time for prayer and Bible reading, you feel refreshed. At the same time, it can quickly fade away. Staying constant and satisfied is what we wish we could achieve. So, let’s think about those mini-Sabbaths that we can have every day. And by “mini,” it could be a few minutes to as long as you want. The daily recalibrating of our compass is vital to staying on track.

Here are some tools that are readily available and have been used for so many years:

Adult Bible Study Guides or “Quarterlies”
Morning Devotional books (for adults, children and youth)
The daily texts sent to the church app
Prayer time between the time you open your eyes in the morning and before you feet hit the floor.
Singing while taking a shower :)
Anything else?

GO

How many times did Jesus heal someone on the Sabbath?

Matthew 12:10 - And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him.
Go to your neighbors and give them a gift to let them know that God was thinking about them on that Sabbath.

Luke 13:10 - a disabled women for 18 years.

John 9:13-14 - a blind man healed on the Sabbath.

There are other similar stories. The interesting piece of information is that none of these healings required urgent action. These people had chronic infirmities. They could have been healed any day of the week. Jesus could have waited until the sun went down. Instead, Jesus made it a point to demonstrate that there is a correlation between being freed from our infirmities and the Sabbath. Every Sabbath these people will remember what Jesus did for them and they will tell the story.

When these people got “back on track” with God, they became evangelists of how Jesus had healed them and completely transformed their lives. People will see them differently. They were blind, disabled, diseased, but now they are alive and well, talking about the One who had healed them.

Apply

How do you tell the story of how Jesus opened your eyes?
How long did it take for the healed people to start giving their testimony?
Think of every Sabbath as a healing experience, where Jesus comes to visit you and restore, repair, redeem and re-create you. After this you have a new story to tell to others during the week. This becomes a weekly cycle of celebration and healing.

Scripture Memorization

And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Mark 2:27-28