Ross Tenneson
Luke 13:10-21
The Most Remarkable Thing a Christian Can Do
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I grew up in a church just a few miles south of here in East Bloomington. Just about nothing in my life has made an great of an impact for good in my life as this church that loved me well. And yet, when I go to visit it now in my adulthood, I can’t help but notice how ordinary it feels. The people feel unremarkable, the building feels a little old, and everything considered there’s not much that’s very impressive about it (at least by worldly standards).
This feels similar to my life following Jesus. There’s nothing more important to me than being with Jesus and obeying him. Yet, my life of following him often feels so unremarkable. It feels ordinary and unspectacular. The ordinary things I do as a Christian don’t cause me to stand out in a special way.
Does anyone else feel that? Does anyone wonder why the church and the Christian life through which God is working to redeem his world, feel unremarkable many days? This is actually part of God’s design for his people and for his church as we will see in this text. Let’s take a look:
Revelation
Luke 13:10
ESV
10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.
On this journey to Jerusalem, it seems as if Jesus stops one Sunday in a town he is passing through to speak at one of their synagogues (which is like a “church” before Jesus’s death and resurrection).
Jesus has taught in synagogues on the Sabbath before (Luke 4). When he has done so, he has consistently provoked conflict with the religious authorities in Israel. This will be no exception.
When we hear the words “he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath,” we should think, “get ready conflict.”
It’s not a conflict that Jesus baits others into. He simply minister with steadfastness and truth and his spiritual enemies retaliate.
The conflict starts after a sudden development,
Luke 13:11
ESV
11 And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
One of the people at this synagogue was a woman with a disability. Luke says she had a “disabling spirit:” that is, an evil spirit caused her disability.
It sounds like there was some Spirit producing a disability in this woman. Not all physical disability and sickness comes from evil spiritual power (in fact probably a lot doesn’t), but it can, as is the case here.
Wherever her disability or anyone else’s disability comes from, it always points to the universal spiritual disability all of humanity has and our need for Jesus. Her greatest need is to for Jesus as is ours.
And whenever you meet someone else who has a disability, we can’t presume to know the cause (whether it’s a spirit or not), but we can know for certain that they need Jesus.
Jesus is going to show up big time in this story as a rescuer for this oppressed woman and her synagogue:
Luke 13:12
ESV
12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.”
I love how this verse begins: “when Jesus saw her.” Our Lord noticed her suffering. Our Lord sees the weak and the needy. Her eighteen years of suffering did not escape his notice.
The people she lived around may have stopped noticing her; her family and friends may have found her insignificant; Jesus did not.
Are you ever tempted to believe Jesus isn’t aware or doesn’t care about your pain?
He sees you just the same as this woman. Your suffering is on his mind. He became a man, a human being, so that he could sympathize with our weakness and pain and ultimately take it away. Your pain is important to him, and he will end it one day forever.
Our pain, at it’s very worst, is only temporary. It is not permanent. Sooner or later he is going to say to you and me what he said to this woman:
“You are freed;” “You are freed.”
Let’s take a look at that phrase a little close:
he says, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.”
Why does Jesus use the word “freed”? Why not “healed” or “restored”?
Answer: because the emphasis in this passage is on Jesus releasing people from the influence and power of his enemy, Satan. We know this because Jesus says in Luke 13:16 that he’s releasing her from the bond of Satan.
Satan has worked in history and continues presently to bring pain, destruction, and death. Jesus is working to bring about the opposite: healing and life. Here we see a picture of what he has come to do and will do.
As long as we live in this world, all of the Christian life is done in conflict with the kingdom of darkness: preaching the gospel, doing acts of love, and praying for healing and deliverance for others are all acts against the evil one and his power.
Luke 13:13
ESV
13 And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.
This constant struggle and battle we find ourselves in would be discouraging were it not for one fact: We are on the decisively winning side. There’s actually no conflict. Jesus exercises his authority, and he wins.
He says a word, he touches her, and she stands up strait, worshipping her God. What a sweet picture of the kingdom of God: the sick and weak encountering Jesus, experiencing his healing, and worshipping him.
This act of healing and deliverence is going to rub someone the wrong way whose highest allegiance was not to the God of Israel and his purpose to heal and save through Jesus:
Luke 13:14
ESV
14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”
The opposition to this beautiful work of Jesus comes from a surprising source: the leader of the synagogue. Who more should rejoice that a work of God happened before their eyes?
Yet, he shows us that having a religious appearance or position does not ultimately matter: it’s only having a heart that has changed to know and love Jesus. As religious as he seemed, his old, worldly heart aligned with Satan and stood opposed to the purposes of Christ.
What was his complaint? Jesus had healed on the “Sabbath.” This is a strange complaint from our point of view. The Sabbath day, as he explains, is the seventh day on the calendar on which God commanded his people to rest in the Old Testament.
For Jesus to heal on the Sabbath does not actually break any Old Testament law from God. It only breaks Jewish laws meant to protect the Sabbath.[1] In other words, to prevent anyone from breaking the Sabbath law, they created extra laws around the Sabbath to make sure no one broke it.
Yet, you can’t change hearts with extra rules. This man might have never broken the Sabbath law, but he didn’t love God. Rather, it seems he loved the laws his people had come up with more than God since when Jesus broke those rules, he became angry. Jesus healing on this day was apparently conflicting with an idol he had in his heart of perfect rule keeping (that surpassed in his heart the importance of relationship with God). Pay attention to what makes you excessively angry church, it’s a good sign there is idolatry in your heart and something is exposing it.
This leader demonstrates how greatly idolatry devastates our hearts. What was his reaction to Jesus healing a poor woman who had suffered for eighteen years? Anger.[2] It’s almost unthinkable. Yet, idolatry distorts our hearts so that we respond with hostility toward God instead of worship. Ironically, it wasn’t the woman who is the most disabled one in this story. It’s the leader whose heart was bent the wrong direction and couldn’t love God.[3]
Jesus is going to point out this heart defect now,
Luke 13:15–16
ESV
15 Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?
16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?”
“Hypocrites” is the word Jesus uses to describe his opponents who are spiritual in name only, and actually thoroughly worldly.
He reveals their hypocrisy by pointing to the way they handle their animals. Even on the Sabbath, they “untie” their animals so that they can drink water.
Pastor Daniel was going to preach on this text this weekend before baby came earlier this week. One thing he pointed out was that the word “untie,” is essentially the same word that Jesus uses earlier when he says, “you are freed.”
Let’s get this strait, they untie (or “free”) their cattle to drink water on the Sabbath, but when Jesus “frees” a woman on the Sabbath and she worships God, they’re angry. He’s concerned his animals get drink, but not as concerned that this woman who is a part of the people of God receives healing.
And as Jesus says, there is no more appropriate day for her to receive healing than on the Sabbath. It’s a day of rest that looks back to the rest God enjoyed with Adam and Eve before the fall and the rest all his people will enjoy with him forever in the new creation. This healing, that looks forward to ultimate Sabbath should absolutely take place on the Sabbath day.
How far his heart has sunk! He treats animals with more dignity and respect on the Sabbath than people. Friends, sin and Satan distort our heart in awful ways, and how good it is when Jesus comes and does battle on our behalf to rescue us. Apart from Christ, we remain bound and do not love what we ought to love.
Now, Jesus has defeated his enemies twice in this passage. First he released the woman from the oppression of Satan, and then he overcame the synagogue leader whose heart was similarly opposed to God.
Luke 13:17
ESV
17 As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
One day, whether now or later, Jesus will expose the shameful evil of all who oppose him. What’s not as clear now will be clear one day. What’s wrong will clearly become visible as wrong, and what’s right and godly will clearly appear as Godly before the eyes of all.
As Jesus puts his enemies to shame by exposing their hypocrisy, the people rejoice. One way Jesus came to bring joy to his people, and to our hearts, is by defeating his enemies who oppose him and oppose us.
Now I want us to focus our remaining time on what Jesus says next:
Luke 13:18
ESV
18 He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?
It says, “he said therefore.” Whenever you see a “therefore” ask “what’s the ‘therefore’ there for?”
It’s a connecting word that shows that the reason he going to say what comes next is what just came before. In other words, this incident where he heals this woman leads him to give this teaching about his kingdom.
His kingdom is the alternative society to this world. It consists of God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule. In our case, it is a kingdom in the process of arriving rather than one that is fully here. God is already ruling, but we are awaiting the place where we will live with him, and his rule is not yet complete, but increasing day by day in our hearts. One day his rule will be complete, the new creation will arrive, and God’s kindom will be fully present. In the meantime, it is emerging bit by bit.
And, Jesus wants to use this as an opportunity to teach about what this kingdom is like and what its people are like:
Luke 13:19
ESV
19 It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
Jesus says his kingdom is like one little mustard seed. Without knowing how seeds work, who would ever think that something so small could possibly become so large? That this little seed, that a bird would likely eat, would become a tree so large that him and his whole family could come and make a nest in it.
What is Jesus’s point? That God’s people, who often have such unremarkable beginnings, have such glorious purposes. I want to apply this point to four different people/groups of people:
(1) The woman in this story is exhibit A in this teaching. She had a “small beginning.” Sadly, people likely treated her with dismissal or apathy. It’s how we humans tend to respond to the weak and disabled often (though we shouldn’t).
And yet, she’s the one who catches Jesus’s attention, she’s the one he calls “daughter of Abraham,” and she’s the one he exercises his power on behalf of to heal.
The healing she received in that moment was only a preview of the complete healing and glorification that was already on the way for her in the resurrection. Though she seemed weak and insignificant in this synagogue, the woman she was on the way to becoming in the new creation is beyond imagining, someone the leader of the synagogue and all of us would gasp at if we saw her in her new creation body.
She is a mustard seed. At the present she was seemingly unremarkable; she’s on the process of becoming someone astonishing. Satan’s intention was to keep her bound and not let her experience release on this Sabbath, but he could not prevent the unstoppable purpose of God for her.
(2) Jesus is the ultimate mustard seed. Here’s how one church father puts it:
“Born a man, he was humbled like a seed and in ascending to heaven was exalted like a tree”
(2). The prophet Isaiah refers to Jesus as being a seemingly unremarkable person, having “no form or majesty that we should look at him” (Isa 53:3).
He grew up in obscurity, worked a menial job, and eventually had a short time as an itinerant minister that ended in his execution. This is not the life story any child dreams of having when they grow up. At the end of it, even his own disciples scattered and hid themselves.
And yet, despite his less than ideal life, viewing him from the other side of his execution, we can see that his life was the greatest and we will continue to worship him without end.
His death that threatened to mark him as: “insignificant,” “failure,” “reject,” is the very moment we focus on more than any in our worship. How can that be?
Because his death that had no significance in the eyes of the world had the most significance in the eyes of his Father. He was fulfilling his Father’s plan to rescue his human family from sin and death. Though the world thought him foolish as he hung there, his Father could not have been more pleased.
The moment Jesus more than ever becomes the tree from this parable is the moment he hangs on one for the sins of the world.
Who would have thought that a seed would grow to become a home to other living things? And who would have thought that a man dying on a tree would become the source of life to countless people? That’s the wonder of our God.
(3) We all become mustard seeds in our oneness with Jesus. To trust Jesus is to become connected to him and for your life pattern to reflect the pattern from his life. Jesus unexpectedly brought life to others and his plan is that you would do the same.
I mentioned earlier how from one perspective Christ’s life seems unremarkable in the eyes of the world. I would venture to say that this description applies to the majority of the members of our church.
Not many of us are rich, famous, or powerful. I believe that some of us struggle with this reality. We would like to be more successful, more important, more spectacular than we have turned out to be.
Does this describe you at all?
I know I have struggled with this disappointment at times in my life, wishing I was more reckognized and more praised by more people.
And yet, according to these verses about the kingdom of God, what God is doing to us and through something far grander than any famous person in the world is doing.
Just consider for a moment: “I rose fast at my job and stayed at the top for a few decades,” or “I wrote a song that lots of people really liked.”
These accomplishments pale in comparison to what’s true of us in Christ:
“I was dead in my sin and had a spiritual resurrection. Now I am in an unending relationship with person who runs the world. And until I go to be with him, I have become a messenger of the everlasting gospel he uses to bring other people to life and destroy the kingdom of Satan.”
It’s true that one day we will all have more glorious and elevated positions in God’s kingdom than we could dream of here on Earth. Yet, church, where I want to focus on today is the wonder of what God is already doing in ordinary-feeling things.
Our life still feels and appears seed-like according to worldly standards. Yet, when we view the ordinary Christian life from heaven’s perspective one day, we will see that our obedience to Jesus and love for others actually has a tree-like effect and significance.
(I can’t believe I’m doing this again). There was an excellent movie that came out when I was in middle school. Russell Crow plays general Maximus, a leader of men, in the the movie Gladiator. His most striking line was: “What we do in life will echo in eternity.”
Now church, the kinds of things that echo in eternity are not remarkable earthly accomplishments, but the ordinary Christian life worked out for the everlasting good of others.
When you are sitting at table fellowship with Jesus in the kingdom of God, across the table from fellow saints you served and helped them reach heaven or told about Jesus and brought them to Christ, what will feel significant then?
This brings me to my main point this evening: the most remarkable thing you could ever do is live the ordinary Christian life well.
If you are letting some other pursuit get in the way of being an exemplary, ordinary Christian, I encourage you to let it go tonight and spend the majority your available time doing the basic things with all your heart: read the Scriptures, pray, go to church, and love your neighbors. If you are wanting to know what you should do when you walk away from this sermon, just do the ordinary, basic things in Christianity with all your heart.
(4) The church itself is a mustard seed. In the beginning of Acts, the church had the smallest of beginnings. It consisted of just a small group of men who had fled from their master after his execution. Yet, in a handful of generations, the church had grown so much that it became the dominant religion in a pagan empire that despised it. How was this accomplished? Through ordinary people living the ordinary Christian life well. They didn’t grow by becoming the richest, most famous, or most wealthy people. They grew by taking the sick and dying into their homes when the plagues broke out and the wealthy and elite fled from the city. When other fled from the sick and dying, they went towards them, and the world has never been the same.
Individual churches (like our own) will often have this same pattern. We had a “small beginning.” There was no news stories, no public recognition, no big budgets. Just nineteen people taking the Lord’s supper in the Choi’s backyard. And though it’s not obvious, the things God has already accomplished here are enormous: including the salvation of people who will now be with God forever.
And although our church still feels small and unremarkable by worldly standards, I believe the Lord has big plans for us. I believe the Lord wants to use us (in conjunction with the like-minded churches around us) to transform the spiritual climate of South Minneapolis in the next few decades. This won’t happen by us becoming rich, famous, or powerful, but by following Jesus in everyday life with all our hearts. There won’t likely be much applause or recognition on this side of eternity, but there will be transformed lives and hearts that will remain forever. To accomplish something truly extraordinary as a church, we have to stop pursing being extraordinary ourselves and give our lives to a mission bigger than us. I want this to be on our hearts as we move to a new worship space: how can we double down on living the ordinary Christian life well?
And if your participation here feels small or insignificant, that is a lie. The church thrives when unimpressive people in the eyes of the world meet Jesus and become in instrument to help others.
Jesus next asks,
Luke 13:20
ESV
20 And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?
Jesus asks the same question to show that he is giving an alternative perspective on the same topic:
Luke 13:21
ESV
21 It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”
Now Jesus uses the imagery of leaven, but he means the same thing as the mustard seed: something small and unexpected grows to enormous proportions. The little bit of leaven permeates an entire loaf of bread. The church, which feels so unremarkable, is in the process of continuing to spread through the whole world and include people from every tribe, tongue, and nation on earth.
This brings us back to the question we asked at the beginning:
“Why does the christian life and the church often feel so unremarkable?”
I want to conclude by answering why God seems to prefer working among those who seem ordinary and unremarkable? Why is this the case?
Because when he works in ordinary people, it clarifies that the power on our lives from from God and not from us. If God preferred the rich and powerful, it would seem as if their own power was the source of their success. But when God uses All Peoples Church and the people in this room, there’s no question where our power is coming from. Being ordinary seeming people makes us more useful to God because at the end of the day, he and he alone will get all of the credit for everything he accomplishes through us.
[1] Williams, D. T. (1989). The Sabbath: Mark of Distinction. Themelios, 14(3), 97.
[2] Biblical Studies Press. (2005). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible. Biblical Studies Press.
[3] Just, A. A. (Ed.). (2005). Luke (p. 226). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
