The movie Rudy is based on the story of a young man name Rudy Ruettiger, who grew up captivated by the dream of playing football at The University of Notre Dame. Unfortunately for Rudy, this dream, for many years, felt like it would never be realized. In the movie, after Rudy receives the last of several rejections on his continued applications into the school, Rudy finds himself wandering into a church, asking God some pretty difficult questions. As Rudy lets Father Cavanaugh into the struggle of his heart, Father Cavanaugh utters these significant words. He says, “Son, in 35 years of religious study, I have only come up with two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I’m not Him.”
I remember hearing those words while watching this movie. I was stunned. It was such a simple truth. But beneath it was such a profound understanding of life. So much of life today could be solved just through these words. In a world running frantic, where everyone has expectations for who we should be, what we should have and what our lives should be about, it’s easy to take life into our own hands and try and solve our own problems and meet our own needs. In other words, we live trying to become our own “god” and don’t understand when things don’t go exactly how we want them to. The problem is that we were never meant to be God. God was.
This week we continue our journey through the book of Deuteronomy, by looking at the 4th Command to “Observe the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” It’s a command that invites us to rest from our work and remember that we are not God. We can’t produce our way into life or meaning. It’s an invitation to remember that we are not human “doings”. We are human “beings”. So by honoring the Sabbath Day we trust that while we are resting that God is working. And that His working produces things we could never produce on our own. It is a command that invites us to remember the freedom that comes from knowing—there is a God and we are not Him.
So join us as we learn how to Sabbath together. You might just find that the life you’ve always wanted was closer than you thought.
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(Weekly Community Group Discussion Guide)
Date: May 15, 2016 // Title: Promised Land Living: The Unforced Rhythms of Grace
Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:12-15 // Deuteronomy 15-16
ARRIVAL / SOCIAL TIME 15-20 minutes
Spend the first 15 minutes or so of your time together catching up and socializing with one another. Also find time to catch up together on how the assignments from last week turned out.
SERMON REVIEW 5-10 minutes
As we continue our journey in the Ten Commandments, this week we are on a discovery of Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5:12-15//15-16. Sabbath is an invitation from God to recreate how we relax, have relationships, find restoration, rest and use our resources. God is calling us to learn from Him the unforced rhythms of Grace through our free time, our finances and our feasting. Each of these areas calls us into a rhythm of living: not simply living different from the world, but living better than the world. When we join with Him in His call to freedom, we can learn to trust in Him when we rest, when we use our wealth and our celebrations to participate in His better way of living. God’s purpose of creating the Sabbath for us is an intentional action, calling us to remember our past and to create our future.
THE MAIN THOUGHT Keep this in mind as you facilitate discussion.Observing the Sabbath is not simply about restricting our activity. It’s about restoring our humanity.
SEE IT Questions :: 10-15 minutes
Picture (what is the story saying?): What is the heart of the Ten Commandments? Where are the three areas of Sabbath-living that we get to live in freedom? What do we have to do, to allow God to continue to work while we rest? God’s invitation to living is not different than the world it is actually ______? What is the difference between partying and celebrating?
Mirror (where am I in the story?): Dave shared a story about missionary friend who lives in an area where they do not do maintenance on their vehicles, so they run them into the ground, dead. Where are the areas of your life that you are neglecting to maintain? What would it look like to be a human being vs. a human doing? Do you view your finances as potential resource or potential richness? Where are the areas of your life that you are partying to forget vs. celebrating to remember and create future?
Window (How does the story change how I see the world around me?): What has happened outside the room because of what happened inside the room? What would it look like to shift from scarcity to abundance in your finances? What would it look like to celebrate well and use that to reach out?
BE IT – Practice
Change UP // Free Time
Our world wants to keep pressing into all of our spaces. We invite you to take a few minutes to just be still. Our 9-5 wants all of our time, but God invites us to rest in Him, trusting that in our rest He is still working. Invite the Lord to help you focus on Him and restore your heart. Take 10 deep breaths and quiet your mind. Be still for one minute. Write down anything that you heard, saw, or remembered and share them with someone next to you.
Change IN // Feasting
We invite you into a of time of celebration. For many of us, the school year is about to wrap up. You might be a teacher, academic staff member, have a student or know one. Plan to celebrate a year well-accomplished. Make a plan to have a picnic in the park or a meal in your home. This is a time to invite people that you know, outside of your group, and have a celebration: eating, sharing and having the best “party” by celebrating well together. It doesn’t have to be fancy: just God’s people, celebrating what He’s done and looking forward to what He will do!
Change OUT // Finance
We have been made aware of several opportunities recently, where we can give of our finance. As a group, pray and talk about how you can leverage your finances together, to support an outreach in need. There were several listed on the Grace Notes: from the Summer Manna project, to the Clarkston House. There are some beautiful ways to use our wealth for the benefit of the common good. Which one will you choose?
CLOSING PRAYER 5 minutes
Take a few minutes to gather any prayer requests and pray for each other to SEE IT and BE IT this week.