Purpose: To reinforce among family members the reasons we keep the Sabbath Day holy.
Possible scriptures: Exodus 20:8-11 (Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Mosiah 13: 16-19); Exodus 23:12 (Leviticus 23:3); Isaiah 56:2; Isaiah 58:13-14; Mosiah 18:23; Doctrine and Covenants 68:29;
Possible Songs: Welcome, Welcome, Sabbath Morning, Hymn 280; We Meet, Dear Lord, Hymn 151; Gently Raise the Sacred Strain, Hymn 146; Sabbath Day, Hymn 148; Oh May My Soul Commune with Thee, Hymn 123; Saturday, Children’s Songbook page 196; Remember the Sabbath Day, Children’s Songbook page 155; Heavenly Father, While I Pray, Children’s Songbook page 23b; I Want to Be Reverent, Children’s Songbook page 28b; Reverence, Children’s Songbook page 27a; Reverence is Love, Children’s Songbook page 31;
Possible Materials: Ice cream! A picture of Christ (pick one that closest fits the story you choose below); A picture of the pioneers resting and worshiping on Sunday.
Preparation: Begin with prayer. Read the suggested scriptures, as well as the stories contained in: Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28, and Luke 6:1-5 (Picking corn on the Sabbath); Matthew 12:9-13, Mark 3:1-5, and Luke 6:6-11 (healing a withered hand); Luke13:11-17 (healing the hunched woman); Luke 14:1-5 (healing dropsy), John 5:1-18 (Healing at the pool of Bethesda), and John 9:6-33 (Healing the man born blind). Pick your favorite story to share with your family. Read through the lesson, including any more links, and carefully select the most relevant material for your family. Children: Watch this story about Jesus healing on the Sabbath and this video about Why the Sabbath Is Needed (from KnowWhy on Book of Mormon Central).
Lesson:
Discuss how last week’s challenge went.
Introduction: Read Genesis 2:3. Tell your family that Heavenly Father made the 7th day special. Then read Mark 2:27. Have your family say the word, “Sabbath.” Tell them that Sabbath means rest in Hebrew, the language that Jesus spoke while he was on the earth. Tell your family that Jesus says that Heavenly Father gave us Sundays as a gift. Ask if they feel like Sunday is a gift? Why or why not? Now read Isaiah 58:13. Ask your family what it means that the Sabbath is a delight? Explain that it’s like a special treat. Like ice cream! How do you think that Sundays are a treat like Ice cream? For every way that the Sabbath is a delight, add a scoop of ice cream (or these paper scoops) to the bowl. Some possible ideas include:
- It is a day to remember Heavenly Father and Jesus. When we are rushing around all week, sometimes we are just too busy to think about all that Heavenly Father has done for us because we are busy getting everything else done. Dedicating one day a week to thinking about Jesus helps us remember how great we feel with Him as the center of our lives. It puts our daily tasks back in focus.
- It is a day that we can renew our covenants with Heavenly Father. We get to take the sacrament. Read Doctrine and Covenants 59:9-12 (you may want to keep it marked for later). Tell your family that the footnote says, “oblations,” means, “offerings, whether of time, talents, or means, in service of God and fellowman.”
- It is a day we can go to church meetings. We can visit with others, interact, and learn from them. We can worship together and sing hymns that help us feel the spirit.
- It is an easy way to tell Heavenly Father we love Him and want to be “His.” Heavenly Father says it is a sign. Read Exodus 31:13. What is it a sign of? Now read verses 16-17. Perpetual means it is always there and always renewing. What covenant are we renewing when we keep the Sabbath day?
- We are promised that if we keep the Sabbath day holy, we will be blessed with the things of the earth. Read Doctrine and Covenants 59:13-20 and Leviticus 26:2-12. How will keeping the Sabbath day bless us? These are some pretty great blessings!
- The sabbath is a delight because it lets us rest our bodies. Our bodies need rest!
- It is a day that we can serve others. When we aren’t busy doing our own thing, we can look around and see what others need, and give it!
- It is a day we can play and learn and have fun with our families! Heavenly Father gave us families because they’re the best way to learn and be happy, but if we don’t spend time together and get to know one another, families can get hard. By spending time as a family, we learn how to be together.
- It is a quieter day. It gives us time to hear our own thoughts and check in with ourselves. If Heavenly Father and Jesus rested on the 7th day, we can be sure that it is an important principle. I think Heavenly Father and Jesus wanted to show us exactly how important it is to rest. Heavenly Father has a perfected body and Jesus did not yet have a body and yet they rested from their labors.
- Sunday is a gift to us because its a day that we can stop and think about how we are doing, if there is anything we need or need to improve on, and make a game plan for how to do better next week.
- Sunday is a day to share God’s work! We can share the gospel with our friends, invite them to church, do family history work, talk with family members about gospel questions or concerns, serve others, and share God’s love with them.
- It is one less day per week to spend money! If we avoid restaurants, we spend less money. If we set a rule to not buy things on Sunday, we control that urge to spend money, and thereby spend less. If we don’t partake of paid-for entertainments on Sunday, we save that money for other things.
From World History: Have you ever actually thought about why we have a 7-day week? We are told in the scriptures that Heavenly Father created the world in 7 days and rested for 1. It is interesting that this pattern can be seen in ancient civilizations like the Babylonians, Chinese, and Japanese. To the Babylonians (and the Jews), the number 7 had particular divine significance, as it did with the early Jewish people. The Babylonians were so powerful that they influenced all of the cultures around them. Then, even the Greeks and Romans adopted the 7-day week. It became “official,” when Emperor Constantine and the Nicaean Creed solidified the calendar for his people, designating Sunday as a holiday.
From the Scriptures: At the time that Jesus lived on the earth, the leaders of his people had become very strict on what people could do on the Sabbath. They made rules about how far people could walk and what knots people could tie and how to make bread on Sunday. When Jesus healed people on Sunday, the people that made all the rules were Angry. He tried to teach them that Sunday isn’t about rules, but on doing Heavenly Father’s work and growing closer to Him. Share your favorite story from the preparation section on Christ’s teachings and miracles on the Sabbath.
From Church History: Hold up a picture of the Pioneers studying the scriptures. Read the following paragraph to your family:
The main company of pioneers had arrived and begun planting on a Saturday. The next day was Sunday, and even though there was much work to do, the pioneers rested from their labors and held worship services to thank Heavenly Father for bringing them safely to the valley. They were grateful to finally have a place where they could live in peace. That Sunday Brigham Young preached to the Saints and reminded them of the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy. Wilford Woodruff recorded: “He told the brethren that they must not work on Sunday, [and if they did,] they would lose five times as much as they would gain by it” (quoted in Carter E. Grant, The Kingdom of God Restored, p. 430).
See Lesson 41 of Primary book 5
Tell your families that the saints were very eager to get settled and make sure to get some crops and plants in the ground to make sure there would be enough food to keep everyone healthy and fed all winter. When you need time to grow crops, it is easy to conclude that each and every day counts. This was a new place, they didn’t know when it would snow or how long they would have to harvest! And it wasn’t spring anymore, but summertime! Plus, they needed to find a way to get water to their plants, and to till the ground (that was very hard because it had never been tilled before). It would have been a strong act of faith to even wait that one more day to plant! Sometimes something as simple as keeping the sabbath day can seem really hard, but Heavenly Father helped them get their harvest in, and He can help us when we struggle to keep his commandments, too.
Further Discussion:
One way that it can become easier to keep the sabbath day holy is to prepare in advance, or get ready on Saturday. Discuss with your family some suggestions that they can do to prepare for Sunday. The list may include: clean the house, prepare clothing, fuel the car, get things ready for Sunday dinner, go to bed early enough that you do not struggle to get up and get ready for church.
Recent Conference talks to consider in your discussion: Click Here for talks on the Sabbath Day. [I really enjoyed Elder Bednar’s talk from April 2021].
Challenge:
Ask your family to pay particular attention to their coming Sabbath day activities and take a personal evaluation on if there is a way that they need to improve. Tell them that they can decide if they would like to share anything next week.
Giving due credit: as usual, I read and learned from the Sunbeams Manual Lesson 15 (Nursery Manual lesson 8), Gospel Principles Chapter 24, and the Family Home Evening Resource Manual Lesson on the Sabbath, and “Sabbath” from both the bible dictionary and Gospel Topics. A few talks and articles were exceptionally helpful, including Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy from the February 2000 Ensign, and the talk by President Russell M. Nelson entitled The Sabbath is a Delight from the April 2015 conference, Lord of the Sabbath from Jesus the Christ by Elder James E. Talmage.
