Sunday Sermon — September 27, 2026
Let Us Enjoy the Rest of the New Creation
Luke 6:1–5; Hebrews 4:9–10
Luke 6:1–5
“One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them. Some of the Pharisees asked, ‘Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?’
Jesus answered, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and took the consecrated bread and ate what is lawful only for the priests to eat. He also gave some to his companions.’
Then Jesus said, ‘The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’”
This incident refers to what happened in 1 Samuel 21:1–6, when David came to Ahimelek the priest and ate the consecrated bread because he and his men were hungry.
Hebrews 4:9–10 says:
“There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their own work, just as God did from his.”
Every Sunday, we come to church and worship God. After worship, we may think, “Today I have kept the Sabbath well.”
But the Old Testament commanded Israel to keep the Sabbath on Saturday, the seventh day of the week. Yet Christians today gather for worship on Sunday, the first day of the week.
So today I would like to consider the biblical meaning of Sabbath rest from the perspective of redemptive history—the rest of the first creation, the Sabbath given to Israel, and the rest of the new creation accomplished through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
1. God Gave Humanity Rest
In the Bible, rest does not simply mean not working.
Rest is one of the most important keys to understanding God’s creation, redemption, and new creation.
Genesis 1 tells us that God created the heavens and the earth by his word. Then Genesis 2:2 says:
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”
God did not rest because he was tired.
God’s rest means that he completed his work of creation and entered into the joy of his completed work.
Many people think of the Sabbath this way: first we work, and then we stop working.
But there is something deeper here.
God created Adam and Eve, and immediately they entered into God’s completed creation and its rest. They did not spend six days working before they were allowed to rest. Their first full day of life was a day of rest.
This teaches us something important.
Human beings were created not merely to work for God, but first to enjoy God, worship God, and enjoy the creation God had made.
Therefore, one of the clearest ways human beings fulfill the purpose of God’s creation is by resting in God, worshiping him, and rejoicing in what he has made.
But the Pharisees had reduced the Sabbath to a system of rules about what people could and could not do.
Biblical Sabbath rest is much deeper.
Rest is humanity’s participation in God’s joy over his completed creation. It is the joyful worship of God and the enjoyment of what God has made.
That is the rest we see in the creation account.
2. Because of Sin, Humanity Lost Its Rest
In Genesis 3, Adam sinned, and humanity lost its rest.
Adam’s sin was ultimately a refusal to trust God as God. Humanity chose to put itself in God’s place.
Instead of worshiping God and living according to God’s will, humanity chose to trust itself, follow its own desires, and live for itself.
As a consequence of sin, God said to Adam:
“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food.”
—Genesis 3:19
Work itself was not the curse.
Work was part of God’s good creation.
But because of sin, work became filled with toil, frustration, pain, and anxiety.
And an even deeper problem entered the human heart.
Instead of trusting God to provide, human beings began trying to take responsibility for their lives apart from God.
We began to think:
“I have to do more.”
“I have to succeed more.”
“I have to accomplish more.”
“I have to control my future.”
And so humanity began living without true rest.
Our bodies may be resting, but our hearts are often not resting.
We go on vacation, but we still worry.
We lie down in bed, but our minds continue to work.
We close our eyes, but our hearts remain anxious.
The deepest problem of humanity is not physical exhaustion.
It is the restlessness of the soul separated from God.
Augustine expressed this beautifully in his Confessions:
“You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
This is profoundly true.
A person who lives without God cannot experience true rest.
True rest becomes possible only when we return to God.
3. God Gave Sabbath Rest to Israel After the Exodus
After God delivered Israel from Egypt, he commanded his people to keep the Sabbath.
Why?
The Sabbath reminded Israel that God is their Creator and Redeemer.
The fourth commandment says:
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”
Israel was not simply being told to stop working.
They were being reminded:
God created you.
God redeemed you.
God provides for you.
You belong to him.
Therefore, the Sabbath was a day for Israel to remember God’s creation, remember God’s redemption, give thanks, worship God, and rest in his covenant faithfulness.
But the Sabbath given to Israel was not itself the final destination.
Even the Promised Land of Canaan was not the ultimate rest.
Hebrews 4:9 says:
“There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”
And verse 10 says:
“Anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their own work, just as God did from his.”
The writer of Hebrews is telling us that God’s people are still looking toward a greater and more complete rest.
The Sabbath pointed beyond itself.
The Promised Land pointed beyond itself.
The entire Old Testament system pointed forward to something greater.
And that greater rest is found in Jesus Christ.
4. Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
Now look at Luke 6.
Jesus and his disciples were walking through the grainfields on the Sabbath.
The disciples were hungry, so they picked heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them.
The Pharisees immediately objected.
They were not accusing the disciples of stealing the grain. The Old Testament actually allowed a person who was passing through a field to eat some grain.
Their objection was that the disciples were doing this on the Sabbath.
The Pharisees had turned the Sabbath into a system of regulations.
Jesus responded by reminding them about David.
David and his men were hungry, and David entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread that normally only the priests were permitted to eat.
Then Jesus made this remarkable declaration:
“The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
What does this mean?
Jesus is not simply saying, “I have the authority to interpret the Sabbath however I want.”
He is making a much greater claim.
Jesus is declaring that he is the Lord who established the Sabbath and who determines its true purpose.
The Sabbath belongs to him.
The Sabbath ultimately points to him.
The Sabbath rest of the Old Testament was pointing forward to Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath because he came to give God’s people the greater and final rest promised in Hebrews 4.
But tragically, the religious leaders of Jesus’ day did not recognize him.
They were so focused on their traditions and regulations that they failed to recognize the very Lord to whom the Sabbath pointed.
And we can make the same mistake today.
Let me give you two examples.
First, we can confuse keeping Sunday with keeping Christ.
I attended a church for twelve years where “keeping the Lord’s Day” was understood to mean that a person had to come to their own church every Sunday, no matter where they were.
Even if someone had to work in another city, they were expected to return to their own church for Sunday worship.
Eventually, one member became so burdened by these rules that he stopped communicating with the church and eventually left.
This illustrates an important danger.
We can replace the purpose of the Lord’s Day with human rules.
The purpose of Sunday worship is not to make us prisoners of a particular institution.
Christians can worship God faithfully in another congregation when circumstances require it.
The Lord’s Day should lead us into worship, joy, fellowship, and rest in Christ.
Second, let me mention an example from Korean church history.
Dr. Yoon Sun Park, one of Korea’s well-known theologians, once faced controversy because a missionary arrived in Korea by ship on a Sunday, and Dr. Park went to meet him.
The issue was that some leaders regarded such activity as a violation of the Sabbath principle.
At that time, there were very strict interpretations of Sunday observance, even to the point of prohibiting ordinary activities such as purchasing groceries.
There was disagreement between Dr. Park and the denomination concerning the proper understanding of the Lord’s Day, and eventually he resigned from his position at the seminary.
The lesson is not that the Lord’s Day is unimportant.
The lesson is that we must not confuse the biblical purpose of Sabbath rest with human regulations.
The Sabbath is not kept simply by avoiding every possible activity.
God’s purpose is that his people worship him, rest in him, and rejoice in his grace.
Therefore, I encourage you not to make Sunday another day of exhausting labor.
You may work five or six days at your job. Then, if you come to church and spend the entire day working at church activities, when will you actually rest?
Students need this reminder as well.
Work hard and study diligently during the week. But when Sunday comes, come to worship God, enjoy fellowship with God’s people, and receive the joy of resting in Christ.
Sometimes we can even think that doing more church work means we are keeping the Lord’s Day better.
But that is not necessarily true.
We can reduce unnecessary church activities.
We can share responsibilities.
We can allow more people to serve rather than placing every responsibility on a few people.
And there is something interesting in the Old Testament.
On the Sabbath, ordinary Israelites were commanded to rest, but the priests continued their ministry in the temple.
They worked so that God’s people could worship God properly.
This reminds us that Sabbath rest is not simply about measuring how many activities we perform.
The central question is:
Are we resting in God and worshiping him?
5. Why Does the Church Worship on Sunday Rather Than Saturday?
Why did the Christian church begin gathering on Sunday?
The central reason is simple:
Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week.
Acts 20:7 says:
“On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.”
And Revelation 1:10 calls this day:
“the Lord’s Day.”
That is why Christians call it the Lord’s Day.
But this does not mean that the church simply took the Jewish Sabbath and moved it from Saturday to Sunday.
Something much greater happened.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ inaugurated the new creation.
The church gathers on the first day of the week because Christ rose from the dead on that day.
Sunday therefore points us to the resurrection and reminds us that God’s new creation has already begun in Christ.
Let us briefly look at the redemptive-historical movement of Sabbath rest.
First: The Rest of Creation
God completed his work of creation and rested on the seventh day.
Second: The Rest of Redemption
After God delivered Israel from Egypt, he gave Israel the Sabbath as a covenant sign.
The Sabbath reminded Israel that God was their Creator and their Redeemer.
The Sabbath also pointed forward to a greater rest that had not yet been fully realized.
The covenantal Sabbath regulations were specifically given to Israel and to their generations under the Mosaic covenant.
The Bible does not give us a clear record that Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob were commanded to observe the Sabbath according to the Mosaic regulations.
We therefore should be careful not to say more than Scripture says about whether the patriarchs formally observed the Sabbath in the later Mosaic sense.
But the promise and pattern of God’s rest ultimately continued throughout redemptive history.
Third: The Rest of the New Creation
Then Jesus Christ came.
He is the Lord of the Sabbath.
He went to the cross and accomplished redemption.
He rose from the dead on the first day of the week.
Through his resurrection, the new creation began.
Those who trust in Christ are made new by the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, the church gathers on Sunday to worship the risen Christ and to celebrate the new creation that has already begun in him.
Sunday is therefore not merely a Christian version of Saturday.
It is the day on which we especially remember that Christ has risen, redemption has been accomplished, and the new creation has begun.
6. Conclusion: Let Us Enjoy the Rest of the New Creation
Dear brothers and sisters,
The biblical story of Sabbath rest begins with the first creation.
Because of sin, humanity lost that rest.
God then gave Israel the Sabbath as a sign of creation, redemption, covenant, and hope.
But the Sabbath itself pointed beyond Israel to Jesus Christ.
And through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the promised rest has entered a new stage—the rest of the new creation.
We now live between the “already” and the “not yet.”
Already
Christ has risen.
The new creation has begun.
Our sins have been forgiven.
The Holy Spirit has given us new life.
And in Christ, we already experience spiritual rest.
Not Yet
Sin and death have not yet been completely removed from the world.
Christ has not yet returned.
The new heavens and the new earth have not yet appeared in their final fullness.
Therefore Hebrews says:
“There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”
We live in the tension between what Christ has already accomplished and what he will complete when he returns.
Therefore, the Lord’s Day is both a present gift and a future hope.
When we gather on Sunday, we do not merely come to fulfill a religious obligation.
We come to taste, even now, the rest of the new creation that has already begun in the risen Christ.
We worship the One who has conquered sin and death.
We rest from our anxious striving.
We rejoice in God’s grace.
We enjoy fellowship with God’s people.
And we look forward to the day when Christ returns and God’s rest will be complete forever.
So, dear brothers and sisters,
Let us not turn the Lord’s Day into another burden.
Let us not replace the rest of Christ with human traditions.
Let us come to Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath.
Let us worship him.
Let us rest in his finished work.
Let us enjoy the new creation that has already begun.
And let us look forward with joy to the day when Christ returns and brings us into the fullness of God’s eternal rest.
May all of us gather every Lord’s Day, taste the rest of the new creation in the risen Christ, and worship with joy as we look forward to the eternal rest that will be completed when our Lord returns.
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Sabbath Rest. Amen.
Let us pray.