Sermons

In Luke 13, you could turn in your Bibles there. It's a joy and a privilege to be back here. But why it could have fit with the scene is because there's a lot of humbling going on in today's passage. There's a humbling with one character, and then there's a humiliation with another, and there's a fine line in all of our lives between being humbled and humiliated, isn't there? Even though the words are synonymous, I would much rather take being humbled, that's one thing, versus humiliated, yet my life seems to follow a series of humiliating events.

And I even thought about this on the way over. Actually, my first public speaking debut in a church was a humiliating experience. I was four years old. It was 40 years ago. The church I grew up in in Pittsburgh, Evangelical Free Church, I think my parents, my parents were Catholics and then they came to Christ in their 20s when they got married, reading the Bible together and reading it for themselves for the first time. My dad would describe how he didn't hear anything actually spoken in the English language until he was about 15. It was all in Latin. So, they were hungry for the Word of God and God used just the reading of the Word of God together to bring them to Christ and they raised us in a Christian church.

So, I think whatever ceremony went on at our church where we were all up on stage together, maybe it was some form of, like, family, parent dedication, I was already four and the pastor was asking all of our names so my middle name is Adam, according to the birth certificate. It's sketchy whether or not my dad actually named me, that was my first name. I still don't know to this day. He can't set it straight. So, it's Jack Adam, his name's Jack. But I knew my middle name was Adam, but everybody called me Adam because my dad's name was Jack. And so, as he was asking us our names, the pastor, and audience out there, he said, hey, so what's your name? And I said, Adam. And he said, “Well, what's your middle name? And I said, Adam. And I got a chuckle like that. Which is mortifying. You don't understand humor as a four-year-old. You think they're just laughing at you.

And on top of it, my two older brothers, one six and the other ten just sneering, like pharisees we're gonna meet here, just yucking it up on stage. So, maybe I got I, it felt humiliating, maybe it was just humbled. But they got humiliated. My dad, good-sized man, on the way to the parking lot, I think in one fell swoop, just swatted those boys into the back of the station wagon, you know, the wood-paneled sides where you could just corral all your kids in the back of it. There's no safety standards. And that was humiliating for them, but that was my first public speaking debut in a crowd of people in a church, so I pray it won't be that today.

I had a humbling experience even just last week. In the summertime, one of the gracious things our elders do at Hickory Bible Church, they give me some time to go and preach. I love preaching at summer camps to teenagers. That's where I got my start in ministry 25 years ago. Just always have had a love for bringing the gospel to young people. And so, I do some summer camps, and the summer camp I was at last week, I've been to a few times. It's up in the hinterlands of Pennsylvania, somewhere between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. And a friend of Luke and I, who we played football with. He had started an inner-city summer camp ministry, brings kids from inner-city Philly, the five boroughs of New York City, and New Jersey, to hear the gospel.

They're unchurched. They get on a bus with a bag on their back, just a change of clothes, and it's a Christian sports camp, and he invites me to preach. The humbling thing was, I, you know, this, bringing a prepared sermon, kind of goes out the window. I learned that four years ago when I started doing it. I show up in a room, it's 200 kids sitting on the ground at the end of a day. They're hot and tired. The fans are going. It's a true summer camp scene. No chairs, and they're packed in, ages 10 to 18. Nobody has a Bible. They have very little Bible backgrounds, but they're hungry to hear truth.

And so, it was humbling because I remember the first year I went, I went up with, like, notes like this and my big fat Bible, and there's not even a thing to put it on. And I think for the first 30 seconds, I thought about doing something like this, and I go, no. You just preach, and you just, the Lord gives you grace. But the humbling part has been there's a recurring student, this young lady who each year, I forget she's there, and then she comes up to me, very sincere, maybe 14 or 15, and just has such, like, a sweet innocent look to her face. And she asks me this every year. What point did you just try to make? I'm like, what? She goes, what was the main thing you were trying to tell us? I'm like, man, I should know she's coming. I recognize her face, but it humbles me every year.

All right, enough of that. But this passage does paint this picture between those who are humbled in a wonderful way by our gracious Savior and those who will be humiliated by that same gracious Savior when they refuse to humble themselves. So, let's talk about a synagogue scene of opposing kingdoms in the life of Jesus. We're starting a new day in Luke 13, verses 10 through 17.

Back to when I was here a couple months ago, starting in chapter 12, we talked about Jesus with a big crowd. He had just kind of torched the Pharisees in chapter 11, in a number of ways, and in chapter 12, He's now teaching to a crowd, but you might remember in 12:1, He says, looking at the disciples, “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” And from there, Jesus started instructing His disciples to flee from the false religion of the Pharisees, the leaven that could spread, of, just putting on a facade. Play acting, if you will. The mask, if you remember that. Putting on the mask of religious tradition and ritual and all the phony stuff He saw right through because He was the Son of God.

He saw right through to the heart. They weren't true worshipers, John 4, who worship in spirit and truth, from the heart according to truth. That's what true worship is and true disciple does. He saw past it and He warned His disciples with those Pharisees within earshot and the rest of the crowd to flee from that, but what? Love God alone and follow Christ alone and be led by the Spirit alone. That was the beginning of chapter 12.

And then He moved from that opening warning to warning of worldly pursuits that can pull our hearts away from heaven, that His lordship demands total allegiance. All of this was there in chapter 12. Even, you remember, allegiance over your closest kin, your own family. He can divide. He stressed the urgency of living for eternity, and that's really right up until last week, listen to Riley's sermon, where he took you to say, look, looking back over that whole section in chapters 12 and into the beginning of 13 is, we can't rest on our own wisdom, thinking tomorrow is promised, there could be an unforeseen calamity like at the beginning of chapter 13, but all that isn't for us to step back and say, you know what, I'm good, I got the mask. I'm keeping it up, it's to examine our own lives.

And that's where he left off last week, being prepared for eternity. Don't be unprepared to stand before Him, the fig tree that looked good on the outside, a facade of green leaves and health and growth, but when you peeled past the leaves to look for the fruit, all you had was foliage. So that's where we ended last week.

Where do we go this week? Well, the question is, where does Luke go? And he takes you to a scene in a synagogue that is not in any of the other Gospels. It's unique to Luke's account. And remember, from the beginning of this Gospel, Luke wanted to give an orderly account. So, he wanted this scene in here. A scene in a synagogue where Jesus is continuing to preach the kingdom and confronting religious hypocrisy and He's bringing to closure His earthly ministry.  He is in the last lap even though you still have, you know, six chapters to go to chapter 19 where He enters Jerusalem. From Luke 9 through 19 at the Transfiguration, a lot of commentators call that the Traveler's Log section. Because Luke is recording how Jesus was just going from town to town and synagogue to synagogue. Doing what? Well, doing what he’s been doing since the beginning of his ministry.

Look back to Luke chapter 4. This is just a good summary to bring us into the scene today. When Jesus began His ministry in Luke chapter 4 verse 14, “He returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district, and He began teaching in their synagogues, and was praised by all.” And that's going to sound a lot like where things end today. But things could go bad pretty quickly. As you see when He reads in the synagogue, in Luke 4. And the people it says in 28-29 were filled with rage as they heard these things.

So, He could be praised by all, teaching in the synagogues in verse 15, and then He goes to the synagogue in His hometown and they're amazed by what He said. All the eyes in the synagogue were fixed on Him and then when He adds a little bit of where He has been sent, and who is going to reject Him, the people are filled with rage as they heard these things, and they got up and drove Him out of the city and led Him to the brow of the hill. Nice welcome back home, isn't it? A prophet without honor in His hometown, Jesus experienced. They wanted to throw Him off the cliff, but He escaped.

And He goes to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were amazed at His teaching, for his message was with authority. In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a spirit, and He cast him out, He rebuked him. Go down to verse 44, it's a summary statement of His life and ministry. He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

So, we can take from that account in Luke 4 at the beginning of His ministry that going to synagogues to proclaim the kingdom of God, and while He is there, come into conflict with the powers of Satan, demonic forces who love to hide out in religious places. These synagogues have been scenes of conflict, and today's passage is the summation of them. It’s unique to Luke's account, and it's the last time, Luke 13, all the way to the end of the book of Luke, that you're going to see a scene in a synagogue. He'll refer to synagogues, but this is the last time He's there, and it's here for a reason. It’s here to move the story that Luke is telling forward into being a person, who when these kingdoms are in conflict, respond rightly to enter in.

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, because why? Theirs is, the what? The kingdom of God. That's why I say this passage is set up to show us what humility really is. To humble yourself to enter the kingdom, not be so proud to resist it. So, let's read the passage, and then we'll walk through the contrasting kingdoms, the opposing kingdoms, the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan, heavenly truth versus damning error. The loving compassion of Christ versus the cold legalism of the Pharisee. Verse 10:

[Scripture Reading] “And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, and there was a woman who for 18 years had had a sickness caused by a spirit, and she was bent double and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your sickness.” And he laid hands on her, and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God.  But the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, “there are six days in which work should be done, so come during them and get healed, but not on the Sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “you hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said this, all his opponents were being humiliated, and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by him.”

Let's pray.

[Prayer] Father, the grass withers, and all flesh is like grass, and the flowers fade. The glory of man fades, but the glory of your word endures forever, and you have given us this wonderful scene, to see the wonderful things in Your Word about You, and things in our own hearts that we may not have seen without this story.  So, illuminate Your word, we pray, Spirit. Teach us, instruct us, guide us. Give us a full measure of Your word today, we ask. Amen. [End]

So, teaching in these synagogues, as we've covered, is nothing new for Jesus. It was a place of great celebration when Jesus arrived for the truth that he brought. Truth unleashed the masses.

If you think of the time when the synagogues popped up in the post-exilic period, when the people of Israel were released from Babylon to move back to their area, and the centralized cultists of worship at Jerusalem, as people moved back and re-inhabited smaller towns, they started their own synagogues, because that practice had been happening for them when they were in exile. Somebody had to open up the Word of God and teach them. Scholars believe that's when it started. So, it had been hundreds of years, but the truth had been covered and buried. And Jesus arrives.

And that's why these people praise Him when they hear His truth, and they wonder, we haven't heard an authority like this, and they certainly hadn't seen that authoritative teaching backed up in miracles and healings, and exorcisms, validating the word that Jesus preached, all these synagogue scenes were showdowns. You can reread Luke 1 to 13, maybe as you continue to go through this wonderful gospel account and just be reminded of the conflict that was always happening when the truth of Christ came up against the error of Satan and the false religious system that they had devised.

I couldn't find a synagogue scene when I looked back where Jesus wasn't in a fight with the powers of either Satan's demonic activity or in a conflict with the lies of hell seen in the hypocrisy of the teachers there. And it's the same conflict we see in this incident, that whenever we, even in modern-day churches, encounter false religion apart from the true gospel, when God's Word shows up, in whatever realm you live in, whether that's you trying to share the gospel with somebody out on the streets, whether that's you trying to have a Bible study at the workplace, or whatever avenue it is that you seek to teach the Word of God, when you bring the truth into a dark place, when you shine that light, it's going to be opposed. You just sign up for that, you expect that.

If you are teaching the truth, there will be the equal opposite of error trying to argue against it. It happened then; it happened now. Satan's workers are disguised as angels of light. And in a case like this synagogue official, he might've appeared the most pious, the best rule keeper, but time and truth was going to expose his hypocrisy. And that is an echo of the warning from back in April when I was here teaching on Luke 12 verse 1, “beware of that leaven.” It's not seen. Remember that idea? Leaven is something that's in there and it spreads, but you don't see it. It escapes our eye, but this wouldn't escape the eye of Jesus.

And the contrast is clear today. The kingdom of Satan and the acts and words of this synagogue official was one of pride and self-exaltation, but the kingdom of God and Christ is one of humility and self-abandonment. And we'll see that collision, not just today, but one of the blessings of getting to stay till next Sunday is we're gonna look at 18 to 21, and we'll see the connection between the two. That what seems insignificant is significant because God, and here's the main idea, I'm thinking of that young lady from the camp. Here's the main idea of today that we'll carry over into next week. We can't be fooled by outward appearances. God is glorified in the lifting up of the humble and the lowering down of the proud. That's it.

When you want to kind of have a framework for today's lesson in your mind, God is glorified in the lifting up of the humble but also the lowering down of the proud. And the story of conflict in the kingdoms in this scene in the synagogue is where God will be magnified in the rise of a broken woman and the fall of an arrogant official. And that is a collision of cosmic proportions. It doesn't look like it. That's what's gonna bleed over into next week's passage. It never looks like it. Small moments like this, that only Luke has, out of all the gospel writers, may just seem like we just brush right past them. But then you'll miss the point of the parable next week.

To our naked eye, to our appearance, we might not see when God is taking somebody that is low, something small, something insignificant. And it matters. It matters for eternity for that person to change. As well as it does to take a proud person, someone who thinks they're right by their own pride, self-righteous acts, and gives the opportunity for them to be lowered.

So first, let's look at “the rise of the down-and-out daughter” in 10 to 13. This is the one side of the equation, the good way Jesus can humble us. And how we can respond in repentance and faith.

Verse 10, He's teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. Verse 11, “and there was a woman who for 18 years had had a sickness caused by a spirit, bent double, and could not straighten up at all.” A woman completely bent over. That phrase, bent double, couldn't straighten up at all. We can't rush past that and think, oh, you know, she was just kinda hunched over a little bit. I mean, think about how awful that idea would be to be bent double, completely facing down all the time, 18 years, just more continually facing down towards the ground. Talk about being humbled when your physical body humbles you.

I mean, Kent and I driving over to church this morning, saw a man like that at the corner, didn't we? With his, whatever he was using to walk with, and just bent over, and I looked at his eyes and thought, what would it be like to all the time be looking down? And it would be painful to have to look up. Maybe you've pulled your back at some point in your life, and you know what it's like for a few days or weeks, or maybe even months, where to just look up or turn your neck is painful. Imagine 18 years of bent over in half, is what this woman suffered with. Makes me think of the words of Psalm 38:6: “I am bent over and greatly bowed down. I go mourning all day long.”

That was this woman's life. It didn't keep her from coming faithfully to the temple or to the synagogue. Notice also, it says she has a sickness caused by a spirit. There's a physical weakness with a spiritual root. It's not just that Jesus would have a physical challenge to heal her. We could see that, but there is something spiritual going on underneath it. We don't know from just the plain account of this text, the connection between this debilitating spirit, even if you look down to verse 16, where Jesus says, it's Satan who has bound her for 18 long years. We don't know exactly how he does that.

I mean, we can look at Job chapter two. After all the calamity strikes Job. His business, his family, he still praises God at the end of chapter one. “The Lord gave, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And all of it, Job, didn't sin.” So then, Satan comes again. And, when God says, “have you considered my servant Job, no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning from evil, holding fast his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without cause.” And Satan says, “skin for skin, yes, all that a man has, he'll give for his own life.” You know, you didn't get right at him, you didn't get to his own physical body, you got to everything around him, that will break him.

So, the Lord said to Satan, or so Satan said, “however, put forth your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse you to your face. So, the Lord said to Satan, “behold, he is in your power, only spare his life.” And then this is maybe somewhat an explanation for the woman's condition in Luke 13 in the sense of how Satan was part of this, Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. So, when we see Jesus say, Satan has bound this woman for 18 long years and she had a sickness caused by a spirit, that's as far as we can get using Scripture to understand Scripture, which is always the way we wanna go.

There were a lot of commentators and different preachers who speculated on what her actual physical malady was, applying 20th century modern medicine to what would the condition be called, and you can Google that all you want. All we know is that there was something more than the physical here. There was something spiritual at the root, and Jesus sees this opportunity, and he takes it. Verse 12, Jesus saw her, he called her, he spoke to her. I'm pausing because imagine the amount of time. In the synagogues that they found in ruins from this time period, I mean, they might be, if I'm facing this direction, if I was speaking here as Christ to this room, from here to the back of that wall.

And my guess, she was seen as unclean. Wouldn't the Pharisees have done instead of her what they said in John 9 of the man born blind? Clearly somebody sinned here. So, she's in the back, bent over. So, I pause in verse 12 when I say, he saw her and he called her. For the amount of time, it would have taken her to respond to that call and hunched over, humbly walked to the front of the room with every eye on her, including those sneering, indignant eyes of the Pharisees. Then he says to her, woman, you are freed from your sickness.

He's talking about the spirit of sickness. He's speaking that, before He even goes into action with laying hands on her. Whatever spirit that caused this sickness under Satan's binding for 18 years, she has now been freed. And yet, Luke 13 says, and laid hands on her. And when he laid hands on her, immediately she was made erect. So maybe this echoes back to Luke 15, or Luke chapter five, if you remember back there, the scene with the paralytic. Where he speaks something, “he says, friend, your sins are forgiven you, and the scribes and Pharisees say, who can do that?

So, to prove his point, he also says, which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or get up and walk? “But so you know, that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sin.” He says, “I say to you, get up and pick up your stretcher and go home. And immediately he got up before them, picked it up and went.” So maybe you have kind of an echo of that scene here, and to say that there is something that Jesus is trying to show in the power of His words. Woman, you are freed from your sickness. and then backing up with, He lays hands on her, and she immediately stands up.

What an awesome scene. To just picture it. Picture Christ, I mean, it's said He came to this synagogue teaching, that somewhere in the middle of that sermon He's giving, out of the Old Testament, He spots her. And fully carried along by the Holy Spirit from the beginning of his ministry, says to her, this ends here. So, He stops in the middle of speaking and speaks to her. Just the humanity of Christ and his deity at the same time, the compassion to see her, and wanna do something about it right then and there, in the middle of it. He doesn't care.

Why does he do it? Well, it's what Luke has been showing us about Him from the beginning. And I'm talking about the way beginning, back in Luke chapter one. It's what Mary was praising God for before she met her Savior. In the Magnificat, Mary said, “My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Why? ”For he has regard for the” what state? The “humble state of his bondslave.” What does she say later on in verse 51? “He has done mighty deeds with His” what? “His arm.” That healing touch of Christ. He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers from their thrones and has exalted those who were humble.

Why did Christ do this in, in this moment 32 years later? Because this is what Mary prophesied about him from the beginning. This is the type of God He is going to be, who exalts those who are humbled with His mighty deeds, His outstretched arm. He's going to lift up those who were lowered. A beautiful picture. Doing exactly what was prophesied about Him, promised to do, empowered to do, all of it in this seemingly insignificant moment on a Sabbath in a synagogue.

Notice also the sovereign authority of Christ here. Sovereign authority in His Word. He speaks, she responds. She didn't raise her hand in the back and say, hey, you know, I've heard about you, could you do something for me here? He takes the initiative. He is sovereign in speaking to her, and then He is sovereign in His works. Puts His hands on her in a way, right away she's healed, nothing else is needed, completely healed in that moment. The power of God on display through Jesus. Another proof in Luke's orderly account that He is the Son of God. Sovereignty, control over everything, no denying that His words are true and His power is real.

And her response is beautifully appropriate as she glorifies God in verse 13 at the end. After she is made erect, she begins glorifying God. Made me think, if she came that day, maybe hearing that Jesus would be there. We don't know, but now her life has changed. Imagine the joy in her heart in that moment, the pain of 18 years, body twisted, head bent down, eyes looking down. And here's the best part. Who did she get to see face to face for the first time in 18 years she can look up? Christ. She looks into the face of compassion. Perfect compassion. A compassion she has never come near her entire life. That's the beauty of this scene. I mean, when you think about what it just feels like and means to be human, to be able to look at people in the eye, right? I mean, don't we say that to others? When we really want to make a connection with them, or when we really feel somebody cares for us, they look us in the eye. We can see their facial expressions. She's not experienced this in almost two decades.

I thought about that yesterday, took our kids over to your mall. Your mall, as if you own it or something. But you should be proud of it. I'm not trying to endorse everything they sell, but coming from Hicktown, Hickory, North Carolina, we have a mall that is a glorified flea market. Most malls in America are these days. There is nothing. And then I took our five kids and Luke's four, or he has five, one wasn't able to make it. Nine kids under the age of 12 in this mall, and it is packed, because it's hot outside. And they're having a good time, but I stopped in a coffee shop, and I just watched. And just, everybody's looking eye to eye. Everybody's seeing each other face to face. Conversations in the coffee shop, smiling, making eye contact, the joy of that, she didn't experience for 20 years almost. And then she gets to see Christ.

And it made me think about what He's done for all of us. This isn't just at the physical level, right? I mean, go back to your own salvation. When sin had you, what, twisted and bent over, as Martin Luther coined the phrase, curvatus in se, sin curves us in on ourselves. We have her condition in our soul, born sinners by nature and by choice. And He unbends us, Christ does. I remember hearing Sinclair Ferguson, a wonderful, I think, Scottish accent. I mean, you guys are gonna have Andrew's Irish accent soon, you're blessed. All those accents over there. But I remember listening to a Sinclair Ferguson sermon on God unbending Jacob. Jacob, who is bent from the womb inwardly, always, what, conniving and trying to get something for himself, and God has to slowly and faithfully work on unbending Jacob all the way to the point He had to touch the socket of his hip to teach him, quit striving on your own apart from me. That's all of us, isn't it? This is our spiritual condition seen in the story of this woman who was low and is now lifted up.

Who could possibly not love a moment like this? Well, we'll meet one in verse 14. Let's look there. There is a person who did not rejoice in this glorious moment. He looked great on the, he was everything the opposite of this woman, wasn't he? A synagogue official, imagine the prestige, the power, the straight back, presiding over the synagogue. Administrators of these local synagogues were responsible for overseeing all the operations. They presided over the worship services, they selected the individuals who could read from the law, they led the prayers, they might even deliver the sermon. So, this man was the opposite of this woman in every way. And the worst way is pride.

And so, what's the first thing we see him respond with? Rather than glorifying God and celebrating with this woman, this outraged official, he is indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. He, like the other Pharisees, and I remember this standing out to me when I preached through the Gospel of Mark to my church, how they had taken the law, which is a good thing. The law is good. It communicates to us the character of God in a myriad of ways. But they took the law and they added to the law, and they took the law about the Sabbath, and it's meant to be a day of rest, and they protected themselves with it. They added laws to the law, man-made ones, so that they could be the most righteous out of everyone. Laws that they probably wouldn't even keep themselves adding law after law, rule after rule, burden after burden, till no one could get out from under it.

And so, I remember preaching in Mark, telling our congregation, you know what religious hypocrisy does? You know what the Pharisee does, the legalist does? They bury the love of God under the law of God. And it's not to put them in opposition. It's just to say that what was the high point of the law when Jesus was asked in the Gospels? It's to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. You can fulfill it keeping those. Well, there was no love for God in these men. And there certainly, in this moment, you could see His indignance. There is no love for neighbor here.

That word, indignant, annoyed, irritated, irate, incensed, a state of displeasure against someone or something, judged to be in the wrong, it's used seven times in the New Testament. It's a neutral word in the sense that it's not always associated with somebody for the wrong reasons. Mark 10:14 records when Jesus was indignant, the same word, with his disciples when they were rebuking children for coming to Him. It's an okay thing to have a rage or a righteous anger, a state of displeasure against something that is truly wrong. But he should not have been indignant, this synagogue official, against what was perfectly right in this moment. That the Sabbath that was made to give rest, they were robbing this woman of and making it a day of burden for her.

By saying, you know what? I mean, his reasoning. There's six days you could have come for this. Come on one of those and get healed. Don't come, and this is the sick irony of this man. When he says, come any day to get healed, to have your burden released, but not on the day where all of our burdens are to be put on God. Do you see how blind you become when you bury love for God and love for neighbor under a self-righteous use of the law? You just bury it alive. And that's what these officials, this synagogue official, had done.

It is common to man to become indignant when we feel injustice has been done. But you know, I mean, you know the hard part about this is it's separating out our own self-righteous anger and righteous anger. Because if you know the Word of God, you can, at least as you think you can, see when someone is in sin and get incensed over it. But, because we're not perfect, we don't see it perfectly, we don't know the situation perfectly, and so we may go too far in that being incensed. Parents, with our kids, there could be a moment where we're saying, yes, it is right to be upset when I see my one child treat my other child this way, but then I go too far in the load that I put down on that child when I'm correcting him. I've gone beyond it, and that good, righteous anger for the Word of God becomes a self-righteous anger.

When I'm heavy-handed and lording over my children in a way that I'm not supposed to. I'm not supposed to exasperate them with the law, am I? But I can do it pretty quickly, unbeknownst to me. The being indignant isn't the wrong thing, it's the occasion for it with this synagogue official. What did this man think was so unjust and wrong about this moment that Jesus healed on the Sabbath? And yes, there were laws for the Sabbath to keep, but there was nothing in the law of God that says you couldn't care for somebody in need on the Sabbath.

Look back at Luke 6. You guys remember this passage. You were there a couple of months ago. This is where it all began, on another Sabbath. His disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them together, but some of the Pharisees said, why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And his response is like; we're not allowed to eat? Isn't this supposed to be a day of rest? So, he takes him to the law, because he's a perfect teacher. And he says, have you not even read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him, he entered the house of God and took and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for any to eat except the priest alone, and gave it to his companions. Why? Because the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man. Man wasn't made for the Sabbath.

It's the same problem here. It's taking the law and burying the love of God and love of neighbor under it. That's what he thought Jesus did what was wrong. But you know, the interesting thing is, this synagogue official isn't the only indignant party. Listen to Jesus' response in verse 15. The Lord answered him and said, you hypocrites. You hypocrites, you play actors. And then He just, argument from the lesser to the greater. Don't each of you on the Sabbath, the day of rest, say, hey, my ox or donkey might need something to drink. I'll get them a drink. You could care for your creature, but you don't care for this woman, this daughter of Abraham, created in the image of God? What's wrong with you?

The clash of kingdoms is seen in the contrast between the synagogue officials' pride in Christ's humility. The official is indignant over the minutiae of extra-biblical laws being apparently violated. Jesus is indignant over the law on which all of it stands, the law of love. I mean, when we talk about the log and the speck, the straining out the gnat to swallow the camel, here is a prime example of it. They are indignant, enraged over this small thing that they have added and missing the big thing that Christ is saying you can't miss. You can't miss that the law was never meant to bury people with and burden people with. It was to love God with, and it was to love your neighbor with. That's what it was meant for.

You know, and clearly, Paul understood that reasoning. Listen to a few of these verses in the New Testament. Galatians 5:14, “for the whole law is filled in one word in the statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Or Romans 13:10, “love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Or Galatians 6:2, “bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.” Do you see how opposite the behavior of the synagogue official is? He did the opposite of bearing a burden of fulfilling love. He made it heavier. And so, Jesus calls him out, knowing that in his heart, he would, this guy, would have mercy on an ox or a donkey, but not on this daughter of Abraham, as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years. If you're willing to care for your ox or your donkey, should she not have been released from this bondage on this Sabbath day, this day of rest?

And then verse 17, I love how it ends. Back to the humiliation. This high man being brought low. Jesus said all this, and not just this man, whoever was in this vicinity, all his opponents were being humiliated. I mean, you could probably imagine the conversation starting up, the rabble, because if they're all being humiliated, meaning people are looking at this awesome occurrence this woman giving glory to God that she's been healed and now Jesus teaching the lesson behind it that everyone around who's this crowd is rejoicing these guys are being humiliated the crowd has turned on them. Why? Because of the glorious things being done by Christ.

Humiliated is a word for being put to shame here. It's in the passive, meaning his opponents were being humiliated by a force outside themselves. Who was it? It was Christ who was humiliating them. Particularly His words. They were being humiliated by the Word of God, which is a good reminder of us, friends. Let the Word do its work in people. You know, you don't have to put your thumb on the scale and really bear down on a person. Let the Word do the work of humiliating. That's what Christ did here. The most powerful work was His Word, because that's where the power is always, in the truth.

Now these respected men were being disrespected by a crowd of peers for their bad behavior. And here is how we see, leading into next week, setting up for the paradoxical power of the kingdom. Something that might seem insignificant and small and low is significant and big and important in the kingdom. It's the picture today of the entry point. How does one make their way into this kingdom? What's the principle at work? James 4:6, you know it. “God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Or Psalm 138:6, “for though the Lord is exalted, yet he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.” Or Matthew 23:12, “whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.”

I mean, do you see this paradoxical principle working itself out, going back to the beginning? God is glorified in the lifting up of those who are low, and in the lowering down of those who are lifted up. This is the way that Luke is now pointing us forward into the kingdom. He's gonna tell us what it's like next week, Jesus, by way of parable, but we're seeing it in a picture today.

So, if right now, out there, you oppose God in self-exalting pride, do know that He is opposed to you. I mean, this is how I came to Christ. I was sharing this with the kids last week at the camp. I mean, a lot of these kids, their bad behavior is on display. During the daytime, I was walking around. There is no play-acting. These kids, their language, their actions, it was on full display. There was no, very little, of trying to cover anything up. And so, I'm watching and observing them all day. And so, when I'm preaching the gospel to them, I encouraged the counselor staff in small groups. Friends, if you're watching some of these precious young people, be so bold as to remember and tell them of their sin that you saw. Because I said, that's how I came to Christ as a 10-year-old at a summer camp.

But I was not of the sin boldly variety. I was the self-righteous one, and my counselor called me out on it, on a porch on the last night there. This 10-year-old, he walked me out and sat me down, and he said, Adam, I've been watching you all week. You have your Bible open, you take notes, but when we get out there and we're interacting with each other, you're the most self-righteous, proud kid in the cabin. A 10-year-old needed to hear that. And he described how I did it, how, when we would be going, there was these things at our summer camp called the confidence course, you know, the trust fall, there's a stump, and, I mean, looking back, the liability, like, like, what? So, let's put eight-year-olds on a stump up here, and then get eight-year-olds to say, we're gonna catch you. And we all had to do it. The leaders didn't help, we were supposed to be building faith with each other, there was a wall that we had to help each other get over. Again, I mean, it probably felt like 50 feet high. It was probably 5 feet high looking back.

But I remember the moment when he pointed it out, how I was just tearing a kid down because he was too afraid to go over it. And this counselor, who was probably 18 or so, was gracious enough to show me my sins. So, I told these kids, “Listen, all of you might not be the ones who are right now cussing each other out on the playing field, but some of you might be like me at a camp, where I just thought I was better than everyone else.” And God used that to humble me, and praise God. I mean, the girl that came up and said, what was your main point? She was first in line after that sermon last week, but second in line was a young man, one of the counselors there, who came up with tears in his eyes and said, you just described me. How could I get out from under the burden of my own self-righteousness? A counselor is the power of the Word of God.

So, friend, if you're here today, it may not be that you see the external sin, but the internal's there. If you oppose God and your pride, bow the knee to Christ today, admit it and cry out to Christ to save you, and He'll do what he did for this woman. He will take you who were low when you finally admit it, and He will lift you up. The synagogue scene finishes not merely with the proper ending to the proud leader's humiliation, but more important, the proper ending for God being glorified in the lifting up of the lowly, because God is glorified in the lifting up of the humble and the lowering down of the proud.

For the Christian today, maybe some points of application to just think through. I don't know why, but we sang about it in one of the songs today, the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 1. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. Maybe just some thoughts of application for you today. For believers to be warned of pride in our hearts, religious hypocrisy. Maybe just ask the question, “how have I been thinking myself better or more superior to others who I see as weaker than me?” Just a self-examination question.

Husbands, just because Peter refers to our wives as the weaker vessel, do you take advantage of that in some twisted way? Brothers in the room that are married, do you, lord, your God-given authority over your wife rather than it give you reason to hold her up, not hold her down, to bear her burdens rather than add to them, brothers? It's a good self-examination question. Bosses in the room, do you leverage your position on the org-chart? Do you seek privilege for yourself in ways that outdistance the blessings you desire to give those who work for you? Parents, authorities in the home, I already touched on this. Are you leading and loving or are you exasperating?

I mean, we have parents of all. I mean, we could even do it physically because of our strength, let alone mentally, how you can do that with your kid, always trying to box them, paint them into a corner with your words because you could be a step ahead of their thinking. Leaders in the church. How are we actively fighting the temptation to not have our God-given gifts from the Spirit be manipulated by Satan to a bad leaven of religious hypocrisy? Those are a few areas of self-examination.

And the reason I'm suggesting those, because those were what came to my heart this week, my own life. I'm a husband who fails at lightening the loads of my wife, carrying groceries not included. I do that okay. But when there's just sometimes a spiritual burden I place on her that is a wrong application of the way I'm to love and lead her. I'm the boss that fails to appreciate my workers at the church. I'm the father that fails at discipling my kids without crossing over into exasperating them. And I'm the church leader who leverages my position and lords over my sheep when I'm not careful. So, I'm saying these points of application don't come out of some systematic theology book, they come out of experience.

So maybe just take some time as I pray now to allow the balm of our wonderful Savior who can see all those flaws in me and forgive me still. That's why as believers we never get over the gospel, because I could see those sins in my own heart, in my own life, in my own actions this week, and bring them to Christ, who when I run that same list of flaws in my heart against Him, I see that He is my righteousness, right? Every way that I fail to love and lead my wife, I see He was perfect in doing it for His bride. Every way that I fail to love and lead my church, He does it for His, His head. Every way that I am a failure as a father with my children, He perfectly exemplified the Father to His disciples.

So, friends, be comforted in Christ's righteousness this morning. That is the reason He went to the cross in my place and in your place. He overlooks the self-righteous and proud and instead chooses the humble. I'm gonna read you a poem to close from Amy Carmichael, who was a young Irish woman who came to Christ and then went to be a missionary in India. She was single all her life, built orphanages in India, gave 55 years of her life to care for them, and she wrote a poem called Divine Paradox.

I'll read this and then I'll pray. She wrote:

“But all through life I see a cross

where sons of God yield up their breath.

There is no gain except by loss.

There is no life except by death.

And no full fission but by faith,

no glory but by bearing blame.

And that eternal passion says,

be emptied of glory and right and name.”

May that be said of us. Let's pray.

[Prayer] Father, we thank You for Your Word this morning. We thank you for its power and its precision in our lives. We thank You how it works in our hearts to grow us and keep us and change us from the inside out. We thank You that we can look at this and it looks at us and it shows us our sin but then shows us our Savior and shows us His mercy and grace that we need every day. So, Spirit, apply it, encourage us, build us, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. [End]

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