YEA Lesson Library
I’m Ready to Rest
About This Lesson
This lesson teaches the origin of the Sabbath and God’s blessing of commanding us to rest each Sabbath, so that we learn to rest in Him.
Scriptures
Genesis 2:1-3
Exodus 16:28-30
Exodus 20:8-11
Exodus 31:13-17
Exodus 35:1-3
Matthew 11:27-30
Matthew 11:28-29
Hebrews 4:3-5, 8-10
Words to Know
HOLY - set apart
LABOR - work
MEMORIAL - something to help you remember a person or event
ARRAY - impressive arrangement
REJUVENATE- to put energy back into again
BENEFIT - to help
The Lesson
What are you planning for your next birthday? Will your mom make you a homemade cake? Will you have a big party or a few friends for a sleepover? Or will your family just quietly wish you a happy birthday in the morning? Whether you have a big party, a small family dinner, presents or no presents, or just a birthday card from your grandmother, you will have a birthday some time in the next year. Why do you keep track of it? Why is it important? Everyone wants to know how old they are, until you get to be an adult. Your birthday is a memorial of the day you were born. It is an important event in your life that you want to remember every year.
The Seventh Day of creation week is like that. It is the day God wants us to remember. Why? What really great thing happened that day? Let's see what the Bible says: "So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day he rested from all of his work. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. He rested on it. After he had created everything, he rested from all of the work he had done" (Genesis :2 1-3 NIrV Kid's Devotional Bible).
What is it that God did on that seventh day of creation week? He rested. That was important enough that God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. What does that mean?
It means the seventh day is set apart. God rested on the seventh day, blessed it, and made it holy. But that was just the seventh day of creation week, right? No. This is where the memorial or anniversary comes in. You should recognize the Fourth Commandment given to Moses by God: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maid servant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy" (Exodus 20: 8-11).
This is very interesting.Your birthday is important to you, and to your mom, but most of the world really isn't interested in what day you were born. But when God finished His work of creation, He rested on that day to make it holy.
Because God made it holy, He commanded all people everywhere to rest on the anniversary of the day He completed creation. He is God. He is the Creator of everyone. He commands everyone to take one day a week to recognize and remember that fact. It's the same day every week. It's not good enough to decide for yourself what day to rest on; God's already decided that He wants you to rest on the Sabbath.
There's something else really interesting about this story. God rested. Now some people will say that God is God and didn't really need to rest because He couldn't get tired. However, the King James Version of the Bible says that God rested and was refreshed (Exodus 3l: 17). In any case, whether He would get tired or not, what we're told is that He rested. Resting means not working. That makes sense. Genesis 2: I says that "the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array." What God was creating was finished. So He stopped His work. God knew that people not only need to rest (to stop working), but they also need to sleep and get rejuvenated. It seems almost silly to mention this. Of course, we need to sleep. Of course, we need to rest. But sometimes people seem to forget that.
The miners of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the United States often used mules to help cart the slag and the minerals out of the mine. Those mules were worked hard, seven days a week. They didn't live very long. Once the miners discovered that allowing the mules to rest one day out of the week made them live longer, the mules were rotated in the work cycle. Whether animal or human, the physical body needs to rest - otherwise it can't keep going. So, our wise God set aside a day once a week and commanded us to rest. Was it for Him that He told us to rest? No. It was really for our benefit. God said He made the Sabbath for man.
God took it one step further. Not only does He want us to rest from working on the Sabbath every week, but He also made it holy. He set it apart. And we are commanded to keep it holy. How do we keep the Sabbath holy? Well, we know we don't work. We also worship God, usually with other people who are worshiping God, and usually in church. Why do we do that? We worship God and go to church because there's another kind of rest that we need to learn about.We need to learn to rest in Him. That means we learn to take all our worries and concerns, problems and troubles to God. If we didn't have one day a week when we are reminded to rest, we might never learn to go to God in prayer and learn to rest in Him. How do we know this rest is the kind of rest God meant? Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew I1:28-29).
Next Sabbath, remember that God rested on this day and made it holy especially for you. Enjoy the Sabbath and learn to rest in Him.
Student Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for giving me a day to rest, to remember that you made all of creation. You made the Sabbath to remind me to go to you with all of my cares and concerns.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Daily Devotions
Sunday - Genesis 2: 1-3
Monday - Exodus 20:8-11
Tuesday -Matthew 11:27-30
Wednesday - Exodus 16:28-30
Thursday - Exodus 31:13-17
Friday- Hebrews 4:3-5, 8-10
Saturday - Exodus 35:1-3
Objectives
At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
1. Relate what God did the seventh day of creation.
2. State what God expects us to do on the Sabbath.
3. Explain why God wants us to keep the Sabbath holy.
4. Describe what keeping the Sabbath holy means.
5. Parallel physical rest to spiritual rest in Christ.
Topics & Themes
Creator
Holy
Obedience
Rest
Sabbath
Ten Commandments
Sabbath
Worship God
Materials Needed
Bible, YEA student and teacher's books, Creation Concentration game, pencils, markers, crayons, jigsaw puzzle pieces from Lessons One and Two, party hats and streamers, balloons, attendance and memory verse charts, stickers, songbook, cassette tape/CD and player
Preparation
For this week's activity add some more cards to the Creation Concentration game, i.e. 7th Day - Sabbath; 7th Day - Rest in Christ; 7th Day - Do not work. By this third week of playing, the students will really have reinforced the events of creation week, and will have added some knowledge about why the Sabbath is important.
Read Exodus 31:12-17 prior to class to give yourself background in case the students probe further about the importance of the Sabbath. You may even wish to write this verse on the blackboard before the students come into class.
Briefly decorate the classroom, as if for a party, to set up the visual connection of the Sabbath being an anniversary or memorial and a celebration.
How to Teach This Lesson
Party hats - Give each student a party hat as they enter the classroom.
Memorial - Discuss with the students what they do for their birthday. Discuss how a birthday is an anniversary of an event - their birth. Similarly, the Sabbath is the weekly anniversary of the day God rested from His creation work.
Holy - Ask: What does the word holy mean? (Set apart.) Why did God bless the seventh day? (Because He rested on it.) What does He expect us to do because He blessed it and made it holy? (Do no work.) How do we know that He wants us to rest as He did? (The fourth commandment. )
Rest - Discuss the seemingly innate desire to push, to get, to go and not to rest. Talk about the necessity built within the human body to rest. Discuss using animals seven days a week, i.e. the mules in the mines.
Church - Ask: Why do we go to church on the Sabbath? Discuss the importance of worshiping God on the Sabbath.
Matthew 11:28-29 - Ask the students to recite their memory verse. Ask: How does this relate to keeping the Sabbath? Discuss how God gives us physical things to do, such as keeping the Sabbath. By doing these things we learn spiritual lessons. We learn to give all our cares and concerns to Him. Discuss some of the ways going to church helps us to learn of Jesus. These things include talking about God with others and hearing the Bible read aloud. We learn through hearing the Bible explained in sermons, sermonettes, Bible studies and Sabbath School classes.
Review Questions
1. What did God do the seventh day?
2. What does God tell al people to do on the seventh day?
3. Why does God want us to keep the Sabbath holy?
4. What does ti mean to keep the Sabbath holy?
5. What does it mean to rest in Christ?
Teacher-Directed Activity
Reminder of how to play Creation Concentration: Lay the cards out on a table or the floor with the blank or decorated side up. The students take turns trying to find a match. If a match is found, the student may try to find another match. If a match is not found, the card must be laid back down in the same place, and the next student takes a turn. The student who ends up with the most cards, when all the cards have been matched, wins. If time allows, shuffle the cards and play again. Encourage the students to finish their jigsaw puzzle piece, number seven, from this week's lesson. When the jigsaws are completed, allow the students to put each other's puzzles together.
REACH Activity
Word Study
Have you ever worked really hard—where the sweat was running down your face, and your arms and legs felt almost like rubber? That’s what our life is like without God in it. Our physical labor may not be that hard, but the mental and spiritual stress and work is heavy. God offers us rest. It is the Greek word anapausis. Do you see the word pause in that word? Anapausis means pause or cessation from labor. (Source: Zodiates’ Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, p. 1609.)
When you submit to God, you can cease struggling with life. Solomon wrote, “All things are wearisome, more than one can say” (Ecclesiastes 1:8). This life is exhausting. Are you ready to quit laboring so hard? Are you ready to go to God for His rest?
Did You Know?
Do you think God was tired when He finished Creation Week? That is silly, isn’t it! You know God is not a physical human who would be tired. But God was finished creating. So He set aside the seventh day and made it holy. That became the foundation for keeping the Sabbath in Exodus 20:8-11. When you keep the Sabbath, you are acknowledging two things: God is Creator and God is your God. In other words, God made the Sabbath day and told you to keep it holy. Now, are you going to obey Him?
Back to the Bible
Are you ready to rest on the seventh day? Or do you drag your feet hoping that maybe this week you won’t have to stop what you’re doing and r...e...s...t?
What is it about resting that just makes us want to jump up, run around, and get busy? This is a good time to look at the life of Jesus Christ and how He “set apart” the Sabbath. Use your Bible tools to find Scripture verses that support Jesus’ observance of keeping the Sabbath holy. Write the verses in your Bible journal and share them with your class or family. After studying the Scriptures, you’re sure to find the Sabbath day more restful. Spend some time in prayer. Look for hymns and songs that speak of the Sabbath day. Find true rest in knowing that God Himself rested after all of His work and, for our own good, commands us to do the same. What a blessing!
Just Toolin’ Around
Read three different Bible translations of Genesis 2:1-3. For example, you might read the New International Version, the New King James Version, and the English Standard Version. How are they different? How are they the same? Which version did you like best, and why? Find a friend or family member to read them with you and ask them which one they like best, and why.
Use your Bible tools to find the Hebrew meaning for the following words and write them in your Bible journal: complete, finish, work, rest, blessed, holy, create.
Stretch It Out
Create a brochure, flyer, or pamphlet that includes the information you found in the previous two activities in Back to the Bible and Just Toolin’ Around. Share your brochure with your class, family, and perhaps your church group or another Bible class.
Music Notes
Have things in your life ever gotten so crazy that you just wished for some peace and quiet? God knows that all people need quiet and rest, and they need it once a week. Oh, you can go for a long time ignoring the Sabbath, but it will catch up with you physically, mentally, and spiritually.
“There is a Place of Quiet Rest” is on page 194 of the CEM Hymnal. This hymn is titled “Near to the Heart of God” in many hymn books. The words and music were written by Cleland McAfee in 1903. At that time, he was pastoring the campus church in Parkville, Missouri. He learned that two of his nieces had died from diphtheria, an epidemic that swept through the entire nation at the turn of the century. Filled with grief, he penned the words and music. Then he gathered students from the college. The Park College choir sang the new hymn outside the quarantined house. The following Sunday, the hymn was sung at his church. (Source: 52 Hymn Story Devotions, Lucy Neeley Adams, pp. 43-44.)
Journal Jot
Have you ever felt really tired after working hard? Have you ever been very tired of a situation? Have you ever felt very tired of not being able to control your temper or not being able to forgive when someone asks? Stop for a minute. Think what it would feel like to have complete rest! Write about the kind of rest you want most.
Questions?
Reminds the child to write down (in their Bible journal) questions they may have as they are doing the activities, working through the lesson, or reading the Daily Devotionals.
Song
“God is So Good" is on page 87 of Kids Classics Collection.
Closing Prayer
Lead the students to thank God for the Sabbath, for teaching us to rest from our work and to rest in Him. Thank Him also for being our Awesome Creator.
Printable Pages
