Eighteen Long Years
First B Jackson
2023-04-23

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Hey. Can you hear me now? Welcome. Glad that y'all are here. Would you stand up and we will sing together?

We'll start off with redeemed. How about that? Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. That's a Psalm, I think. One zero seven, I'm not positive.

Hymn number three fifty six.

Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed through his infinite mercy, his child and forever I am. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb, Redeemed redeemed his child and forever I am. Redeemed and so happy in Jesus.

No language my rapture can tell. I know that the light of his presence with me doth continually dwell. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed, redeemed his child and forever I am. I think of my blessed redeemer.

I think of him all the day long. I sing for I cannot be silent. His love is the theme of my song. Redeem. Redeem.

Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed redeemed his child and forever I am. I know I shall see in his beauty, the king in whose mighty light, who lovingly guarded my footsteps and giveth me songs in the night. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed, redeemed his child and forever I am.

Amen.

Wait a second. We sing another one. I don't don't don't don't don't listen to me. We're singing another one. Actually, this one usually comes across as an invitation hymn but you know what?

The invitation is always open. Invitation's always open and Jesus is calling softly and tenderly. Let's sing this one.

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me. See on the portals he's waiting and watching, watching for you and for me. Come home. Come home. Come home.

Earnestly tenderly Jesus is calling. Calling all sinners come home. Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading pleading for you and for me. Why should we linger and heed not his mercies? Mercies for you and for me.

Time is now fleeting. The moments are passing, passing from you and from me. Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming, calling all sinners come home oh for the wonderful love he has promised promise for you and for me. Though we have sinned, he has mercy and pardon. Pardon for you and for

Amen. Now y'all can have a seat. Love that song. It's powerful, softly and tenderly. Announcements.

Monday night is happening tomorrow night at First Bee. Carl, it is from Mark Mark ten. Ten. Mark ten. Conversation with rich ruler.

The conversation with the rich young ruler. I was I was getting confused about that this, since the first service. I had forgotten. Monday nights at first be it's happened at 06:00. Barb is making the meal.

It'll be good. Music is the the first service band, and then, the message is gonna be on Mark 10. That's gonna be a good one. Monday nights. Also, at the same time, Awana is meeting in the church.

So Awana Kids Club happens oh, actually, it's the rest of the church. Everything except for the fellowship hall is covered up by kiddos and volunteers who are pouring scripture into their minds to reach their hearts. This is just kind of a general announcement. Jackson Hole Men's Alliance meets on the first Wednesday of each month. That's not coming up this week.

I'm just letting you know so that you know. First Wednesday of the month, 06:30AM. It's a good place to be for guys. Ladies fellowship, this week will be the last one where they're studying, the current book that they're going through. So ladies fellowship, they get together, they meet together, they pray together, they eat together, and they have been studying a book together.

And this week will be the culmination, the last one of those before starting this, the Christian Life and Witness Course. This is in anticipation of a big event in September that's happening in Idaho Falls. Billy Graham, Evangelistic Association and his grandson, Will Graham, will be doing a one night show on September 24 with a September 23 Kids Fest ahead of time. But building up to that, the Christian Life and Witness Course, which doesn't have to only do with this event. It's just good.

Everything, all the materials that we've seen for it so far are really good. Met the guy who will be teaching it. He's wonderful. May fourth, eleventh, and eighteenth from seven to 9PM. If you would join in, that's not just for ladies.

It's not just for gentlemen. It's for all of us. So if you would, May fourth, eleventh, and eighteenth, that's coming up. Also, in association with this, there, there is gonna be on Tuesday in Idaho Falls something for churches, pastors, church staffs, and we are gonna go over. So the on Tuesday this week, this is kind of a rare thing.

But on Tuesday this week, we're pretty much gonna have the office closed. The whole office staff is gonna drive over early in the morning, and we are gonna be over there for all day long till 05:00 in the evening. But there are speaker after speaker after speaker. We're looking forward to it. And would you be praying for us and for the, the, I don't know, souls in the room, people we represent?

I don't know. It's just ought to be good. Ladies spring luncheon is happening today immediately following this service, ladies. Nancy t is down there setting up for it right now. So that's today in the Fellowship hall.

I don't don't understand the need for signing up at this point, but there are some sign up sheets in the foyer. If you wanna use them for scratch paper, you're welcome to. Alright. Last night, there was a potluck dinner for the Ion family. So for Florin and Violetta, it was good to hear from both of them, kind of the plans for what they're hoping and planning and dreaming about in Romania.

It's a little bittersweet for us and for the Valley, and I know that you all know that. But we had that gathering last night for them to share kinda directly with the church folk that had been supporting them, and, it was good. There was a time for questions, and there's also time just to be blessing them. And a lot of you all were there. I can see that.

I know that. But, thank you for that. We're working through sending them out. June 4 is their last Sunday here with us, so it's not right now, but it's coming pretty quick. They have a pretty clear vision for what they would have that they they believe that God would have them do there.

So I think that that's a really good thing. Here we are where the spirit of the Lord is. Would you stand with us? I'm glad you're here this morning. I'm glad to be here this morning.

The message in the music has already been, for me, worthwhile. Amen. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there's peace. Amen. Let's sing it again.

This last one is, the longer I serve him. Isn't it true? The longer you serve him, the sweeter he grows. Just two verses of this. Amen.

Y'all can have a seat. On softly and tenderly, I've sung that song probably half a million times in my life. Right? It's an invitation song. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church.

It's just what we do. It's funny because this writing in our hymnal is very different rhythmically than the one that I grew up with. And if any, y'all know there are two people in here who grab hymnals every week, and I thought if you're reading with it, I wasn't singing with you. And I said ye instead of you, and it's traditional. Right?

And then the longer I serve him, that was super traditional too. During the practice, she played it like it was written. During the during the singing of it, she sang it the way I sing it. I don't know which one of them is traditional, but it's nice to have somebody that can flex with you. Right?

Move into the place. Would you pray with me? God, I thank you for the team that is the body of Christ, the continuing body of Christ on earth. Lord God almighty. You are working through your people.

It's plan a. Lord, there's no plan b. You don't need a plan b. This is the way it's gonna happen. In Jesus' name, may we be a part of it, Lord.

May we be a part of the solution for getting the gospel to the very uttermost parts and not a part of the problem of just hoarding the blessing. In Jesus' name, we ask that everything that you, by your spirit, inspire us to do, you'd give us the power to carry out. Lord, we ask that you would be mending and repairing, that you'd be helping us, Lord, to understand the scriptures, not just to understand them. Some things are easy to understand, they're hard to do. I pray, Lord, that you would help us to understand so that we may walk in righteousness.

Actual righteousness, not just being right. Lord God Almighty, would you have your will done in your way, in your people here today. I ask that you'd bless each gift and each giver that you'd multiply the resources to do the work. The harvest is plentiful, Lord. In Jesus' name, we're asking you to send workers into the field.

Amen. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Judy. So we have been in a chronological study for a long time now.

We're walking through the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke with an emphasis on, this this is the last few months before the cross. I know we just covered the cross at Easter, but last week, I covered a whole chapter and, like, nine verses. So chapter and a half. This week, I'm going to just 11 or 12 verses. It's not a long text this week, but it hit me harder this week than, than it often does.

Part of the reason is because at first glance, you know, when you're looking over I've been looking over it a couple weeks. But when you look at it at first glance, go, Yeah. Jesus doing what he does. He did a miracle. You know?

But sometimes you're tempted to just keep reading. Well, what I'm looking for is where do I start? Where do I stop? I know where I start because I know where I stopped last week. Right?

So I just start right there. That's easy. Where do I stop? What's the so that's what I was looking for this week and I thought, is that enough? Is that enough to talk about for the whole time?

And I thought, well, we'll do it anyway. We'll do it. Maybe it'll be a short sermon I kept him long last And then I got convicted, confessional preaching. Oh my goodness. It hit me, and I thought, God forgive me.

Forgive me for that presumption. Meh. What in the world? This is God's holy work. He's got a design for it.

That design is that it would be transforming the lives of his humble and obedient students, servants, doulois, slaves. Okay. Here we are. So last week was the reason I did it one chapter and nine verses is because it was one conversation. It's just because that was the section Jesus did five warnings and two alternatives.

And then this just says, now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. It doesn't say when it was. It might not be chronologically right there with it. It's the next thing in scripture. This particular passage is only in Luke, so I'm not going to cover it in Matthew and Mark.

I'll go back to an earlier miracle story that's somewhat similar in location and in emphasis, but it was in both Luke and Matthew and a little bit in Mark. This though says, now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues. A synagogue, we tend to think of it West Jewish because it's synagogue. A synagogue, it means assembly, in the assembly. And if there are 10 Jewish families in an area, officially, there is a synagogue because that's the assembly of those believers, those Hebrews.

They would have 10 families that would begin a synagogue. So they're usually pretty small. They could be big. They could be bigger in a geographic area with more people, but Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogue. It doesn't say whether it was small.

It doesn't say whether it was large, but it does say when it was. It was on the Sabbath. Oh, boy. On the Sabbath. It's a nonspecific locale, and this is the last time in Luke that Jesus is mentioned as being in a synagogue.

Oh, boy. Something happened there. Luke, the Gentile physician sees it and says, yeah. That makes sense. I'm gonna record this.

Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues. It's the last time. We're still pretty early in Luke, actually. This is Luke 13. We've still got a ways to go before we get to the cross, you know.

But he presented in one of the synagogues on this actually, he was teaching in the synagogues in on the Sabbath. And on the Sabbath, when we hit that, we know there's gonna be trouble. We know that because we've been going through this. And each time that it mentions that this happened on the Sabbath, it's like, uh-oh, here it comes. So the reason for that, if you grew up in a very traditional church, very traditional church, you might have a had a rule that you don't go play games on Sunday afternoon.

You don't play cards on Sunday. You don't wear certain things on Sunday. You might have and we think we know what the Sabbath is all about. Right? But we don't get as clear a picture of the way that they thought of it at this time.

On the Sabbath, these were the things in first century Judaism and still today in our Orthodox households. These are the things that are against the rules. These are the ones that you cannot do these things on Sunday. So there's no carrying. There's no burning.

There's no extinguishing. There's no finishing. There's no writing. There's no erasing. You can't write and you can't erase.

No cooking, no washing, no sewing, no tearing. I think I got an amen. No nodding, no untying, no shaping, no plowing, no planting, no reaping, no harvesting, no threshing. Remember in Matthew 12 and in Luke six when the disciples were walking through a grain field to get to synagogue and and they start doing this with a few heads of grain to eat them. No harvesting, no threshing, no winnowing, no reaping.

They they had broken four of them. If they let the husk fall to the ground, that's winnowing. And so you're and they rebuke Jesus and say, you don't rebuke your disciples for breaking the Sabbath? Now Jesus didn't do it. But they came to him and said, you're the leader of this band, these band of rogues that dare to feed themselves on the Sabbath.

Let's go back to it. Harvesting, threshing, winnowing, selecting. You can't even choose what you're gonna do. Sifting, grinding, kneading, combing, spinning, dying, chain stitching. If you didn't get that of everything else, no chain stitching people.

No warping, no weaving. Actually, it's funny because this this is in English. This list is backwards because in Hebrew it reads from the other end. But chain stitching, warping, weaving, unraveling, building, demolishing, trapping, shearing, slaughtering, skinning, tanning, smoothing or even marking the ones that you are going to skin, tan or smooth. That's a lot.

That's 39. This is not from the Torah. When you hear in churches today, you hear, well, they had the 10 commandments, and they had the 613 rules. This is not from those. This doesn't even this doesn't it's not from those.

There's only one of them on this list that's actually in Torah, and that's carrying. There's a certain amount that you're not supposed to carry on a Sabbath day. But that list is not really Torah. It is Halakah. Halakah.

I'm from Georgia. Forgive me if you're if you're Jewish background believer. Halakah is the writings of what Torah meant. Okay? It's the intertestamental literature.

After the Old Testament, before the New Testament, it is all the wrangling from the religious people about what is and is not permitted. So that's the halakkah. And there are chapters and chapters and pages and pages and pages of this. There's one rabbi who is said to have spent two years studying just one of these. So there's enough information that he could spend some time doing that.

Chapters and chapters and chapters, hundreds of pages about the fine detail. It's not just this no chain stitching, it's like what constitutes a chain stitch, right? And it goes further than you can imagine. And there's a majority opinion and a minority opinion. It's sort of like a Supreme Court ruling, sort of.

So that's the Sabbath. That's why there's gonna be trouble. Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, and there was a woman, okay, who for eighteen years think about that. I've been here eleven. Yeah.

Eighteen years. The difference at fifty one and whatever eighteen years less than that is, is so much that I don't want to do the math. Thirty three? Is that right? The difference in fifty one and thirty three, is that right?

There's a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness that was caused by a spirit. Luke, Gentile physician, says this was a sickness. Yes. But it was a we might call it some people might be tempted to call it psychosomatic. It was something in her mind, in her heart, in her life that was causing her body to react in a sickness.

She had a sickness that was caused by a spirit, demonic oppression, spiritual, had a sickness that was caused by spirit, and she was bent over double. She's bent over like this. Have you all met people who are bent over double like this? Roseanne mentioned between services that when she was in Africa the first time around that the ladies that carried sticks on their back for their fire would often carry water on their head for the and they just get lower and lower. And by the time they're older, they walk like this.

So this woman, she's been over double. It's emphatic in the text. It says she could not straighten up at all. Some people say she could not at all straighten up. Either way, it's terrible.

She's been over double, could not straighten up at all. And when Jesus saw her, when he saw her, he saw her. He noticed her. He had compassion on her. And he called her over and said to her, woman, you're freed from your sickness.

Isn't that good? Just as simple as can be. Had he broken any of those rules that I just read out, is it illegal to talk to someone on Sunday or else on the Sabbath, excuse me, not Sunday. On the Sabbath. No.

Is it illegal to bless someone on the Sabbath? No. That was a blessing. No doubt about it. Woman, you're freed from your sickness.

And it says, and he laid his hands on her. Was there anything that was illegal about that? No. Nope. You could do that.

He laid his hands on her, and immediately she stood up straight. Oh, from being like this for eighteen years. Can you imagine? Making it the Sabbath. Presumably, this is the assembly.

This is where she was on the Sabbath. Probably, maybe, where she lived. He'd been seeing this lady for the last eighteen years, been over double. Woman, you're freed from your sickness. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she stood up straight again.

Oh, can you imagine? And she began glorifying God. That's the proper response. That is the proper first of all, he called her over. She came over.

That's a proper response too. Woman, you're freed from your sickness. She heard him. He laid his hands on her, and immediately, she stood up straight again, and she began glorifying God. That's wonderful.

But, oh, come on. Synagogue leader. That is the leader of the assembly. Okay. Let's let's just look at this for a minute.

Is this an assembly? Okay. I'm the one up here. I feel like doubling over. I'm the synagogue leader, and this is what hit me this week.

Indignant. The synagogue leader, indignant. Now Jesus had just done something wonderful for this lady, and she had the proper response. She's glorifying God, but the synagogue leader, indignant. Oh my goodness.

This is the word indignant. That's not a whole lot. To grieve much. He was upset. He was upset because Jesus had done something, maybe jealousy, that he couldn't do.

Maybe. He was grieving. Sabbath. He was indignant. He was angry.

Now I I mentioned let me just go back to the word indignant. I mentioned a few weeks ago that Carl and I went to a pastoral retreat. We thought it was gonna be a pastoral retreat. That was the way it was built to us. That is the way that my friend whom I love had been transformed by going to this thing.

He wanted me to experience it just like he did. And so after saying no for eighteen straight months, really, I relented and said, well, Carl Carl and I, maybe we could. He's, yeah. You need it. Carl needs it.

Come on. Come on. When we got there, it was not a pastoral retreat. It wasn't like sleeping and studying the scriptures and hearing the birds tweet and just taking time to slow down. It was nothing like that.

It was a men's intensive. Yeah. Men's intensive. They literally gave us big rocks to carry around. If Carl forgot his one time.

If you forget and he was honest when they said, did anybody forget their rock yesterday? And Carl said, I did. He said, come get another one. So he got to carry two rocks. I'm not talking little rocks, eighteen, nineteen, 20 pound rocks.

Now we're carrying them in a green sack. It made me so mad. I was indignant. I would classify indignant starting less than so they told us be there at this time. We were there at that time.

They came to get us out of the car literally fifty six minutes later. And when they got us, they got us one at a time. I was so mad, so angry. And I stayed angry for forty two hours because that's how long that thing was. I thought it was ridiculous whenever we were alone.

I said this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. I am so mad. Only transformation only happens by the word. It only happens by the way we do it, basically, in my mind. Six months of counseling might cure that situation that that guy's got.

But you know what? People are getting set free. My friend had invited us because he had a dramatic leap forward in his life, in his faith, in his in his wife's life. It was crazy. And when I saw it, it just made me mad.

Here I am, synagogue leader, indignant. This guy's only mention as far as we know, this guy's only mentioned one time in the Bible. It's recorded. You know, last week we said the things that you the things that you whisper in quiet are gonna be known, proclaimed from the housetops. What's gonna be proclaimed about this guy is that he was angry.

Do you want for that to be what identifies you? This is an angry time that we live in. Right? Everybody's stoking anger all the time. I felt really good about my own stance while I was there.

I felt really good that this is wrong. Actually, they asked me one time and said, how did that make you feel? And I said angry. Angry through gritted teeth. And they said, can you drill down in that and tell me why it made you angry?

I said, yes. Because emotional manipulation is abhorrent. And that's what's going on here. And I was very self righteous about the whole thing. And I was very indignant about the whole thing.

Look at what this guy is indignant about. But the synagogue leader, indignant. Because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. Jesus hadn't broken any rules. Any of their rules even.

But you know what it does? It acknowledges that healing was the work of Jesus. At his first sermon on Nazareth up on Nazareth Ridge in the synagogue in Nazareth in Luke four, I think it is, they sought to throw him off of the cliff because he wouldn't proclaim judgment on their enemies. They heard him say his job was to heal, to give sight to the blind, to have the lame walk, to have the deaf hear. The synagogue leader was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath.

He had made up his mind already. That's wrong. He began this is funny too. So the leader began saying to the crowd, okay? He began saying he didn't answer Jesus and say, you broke the Sabbath.

He said, you people, all of you who are here in my assembly, all of y'all, there are six days during which work should be done. We know that. Actually, he's quoting scripture there. That's Exodus 29, I think it is, 29 a. There are six days during which work should be done, so come during them and be healed.

Y'all come at a different time to be healed. Eighteen years this woman had been presumably in this assembly and not been healed yet. And she didn't ask for the healing, and Jesus just saw her, had compassion on her, made her whole. Exodus 29 does say this, for six days you shall labor and do all your work. Scriptural backing right there.

Here's the list. Now this is the halakah, not the Torah. The halakah says all of these things. And if you've got all these things in mind and we might have added some more in our own circles. Depending on your denominational background, you had different rules.

Depending on your cultural background, Florin has told me lots of things. Ferry, Francis has told me lots of things about Romania, and there are things that we do here that if you did those things in Romania, they wouldn't even believe you're a Christian. Definitely not a pastor. In Mexico, I wore blue jeans to church, it's like, are you sure this guy's saved? Right?

If I wore a tie, they'd ask me to preach. Really? Really. So we've come up with our own traditions too. I'm not just blasting them, but these were the traditions of what was constituted work.

I want you to see how they came up with this. I wish I'd split them out. Try to just read them one at a time with me. These are the five types of interdiction. These are the rules, and they were laid down by the Jews.

First of all, those things that are specifically forbidden in the scriptures, I think almost all of us would say, amen. If scripture forgives it if if scripture is against it, I'm against it. That's a yeah. I'll skip that. It's an old joke in the family.

It's like, what was the sermon about? Sin. What was it about? Well, he's against it. Sorry.

Those specifically forbidden in the scriptures. If the scripture's against it, we're against it. Okay. Yeah. Second one.

Those things that are supposedly forget forbidden in the scriptures. Wait a second now. That's not specifically. It's supposedly. It's taking what scripture says and then adding to it a layer.

So the halakkah is not even the 613 ceremonial laws civil ceremonial laws. This is adding to it a hedge of protection around it. Those things supposedly forbidden in the scriptures. The third one gets further away than that. Things that are forbidden because they might lead to a transgression of the biblical command.

That's the slippery slope argument. Don't be doing that. That could get you in a position where you are doing something that you shouldn't do. That's the slippery slope one. So it's a hedge, and then a hedge further than that.

The fourth one says, actions that are similar to anything that's like the kinds of labor that are supposed to be forgiven in the forbidden in the Bible. Wow. And then the fifth one. Oh, the fifth one. Actions that are regarded as incompatible with the honor that is due to the Sabbath.

If you've ever studied regulations like I used to be a safety man. Y'all have heard that a thousand times. Safety people, we have to study the code of federal regulations to know what is and what is not allowable. I'm in a sawmill or a factory in Georgia, and I'm going around and saying this thing needs to be guarded according to code of federal regulations, twenty seven nineteen, buh buh. Well, in the Code of Federal Regulations, says, do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that.

And it's got all these specific rules and then there's one paragraph that says, you may be fined for any of these infractions up to $7,000 unless it's a willful violation, and then it's $70,000 And then it says, any of these violations or anything else we deem to be unsafe. What hope do you have a living by the law if they've got the escape clause, the general duty clause, they called it? Well, this is who's making that decision? The synagogue leader was making that decision. Actions that are regarded as incompatible with the honor due to the Sabbath.

Healing someone was on his list. And it was on not just his list. Actually, we go back to Luke six, this is a different occasion. On another Sabbath, the text even says so, He entered the synagogue and he taught. That's what he did.

He got together in the assembly and taught. And a man was there whose right hand was withered. Now the scribes and the pharisees were watching him closely, because that's what legalists always do, to see if he healed on the Sabbath so that they might find a reason to accuse him. If you think cancel culture is new, you are wrong. But he knew what they were thinking, and he said to the man with the withered hand, get up and come forward.

And he got up and he came forward. Obedience is important. Get up and come forward. And he got up and came forward. Actually, he says in Luke 13, it says, he called the woman to come here, and she did.

Right? So obedience is important. I'm gonna fly through this one because I already preached through it one time already. And Jesus said to them, I ask you. I know what you're thinking.

I ask you, whether it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do harm, to save a life or to destroy. He uses the word destroy. Is it okay to do that? Now, if you were to read the Halakah and read all of the different things, they had all kinds of rules. One of the rules like, you could put a piece of cotton in your ear as long as it was before Friday at sundown, Really, to take care of an earache.

You could try to heal yourself during the week. That's fine. You could put a piece of cotton in there, but that's carrying because you had to get the cotton from somewhere to your ear. I'm not joking. And you put it in your ear on before Friday at sundown.

And if it falls out while you sleep, or if it falls out during the daytime, or if a little kid pulls it out while you're there, you can't put it back in. Nope. You can't. That's a breaking the law. You can't do that.

You have to wait until Saturday at sundown to do that. And they would argue there's even one where if a wall falls, this is random circumstance, but just say a wall falls, stone walls fell at the time, you know. A wall falls down and somebody is under the rubble. You can't pick those stones up to get to them. Right?

Oh, you can. In this case, it is allowed, they said. You can throw the stones off the person. If they're dead, leave them there till after the Sabbath is over. If they're alive, you can get them up, but you can't heal them that day.

You just get them up that day, and then you can heal them the next day. Goodness gracious. So some people did allow for saving a life on that. But he's asking that, and he knows it's a controversial question. I ask you whether it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath, do harm, save a life, or destroy it.

And after looking around at them all, they didn't answer him apparently, he said to him he said to the man with the withered hand, stretch out your hand. And he did so. Oh, again, obedience is important. Man listened to him. And his hand was restored.

He was blessed for his having listened to Jesus. Hey. Wouldn't we be blessed if we listened to Jesus? But they themselves were filled with senseless rage. Oh, come on, people.

That's that's indignance. That's what my problem was, and my problem is. They themselves, after seeing that on the Sabbath for crying out loud, and then he has the audacity to call us out before he does it. Let me just stop right here and say, at that weekend retreat thing, there were a lot of people that had a great and transformative time. And I wasn't begrudging that until just this week when I looked at this passage.

I don't want to be known as an indignant person. I don't want to be angry about stuff. And I have a choice as to what I'm going to do. Now anger is going to happen to us. It's going to come upon us in a flash, and we're going to feel so self righteous about our own anger because it comes from how we understand things.

But we're finite beings. We have a finite understanding, and we're trying to comprehend an infinite God who is loving and caring and merciful. They themselves, after seeing a man healed, were filled with senseless rage. This is the word, anoias, anoias. Anoias is where we get our word annoying.

They were annoyed. Senseless rage, folly, madness, foolishness, properly. It is no mind. It refers to irrational behavior, mindless actions. There is a lack of sense which easily degenerates into a state of extreme anger that suggests an incapacity to use one's mind.

Extreme fury, great rage. I didn't make that definition up. That's the definition of that. Wow. Seeing him heal someone annoyed them.

And they began discussing together what they might do to Jesus. Matthew goes a little further and tells us what they were discussing. It actually says who was the the Pharisees and the Herodians who were enemies. They don't like each other. They don't agree with each other theologically.

And Matthew says, but the Pharisees went out and they conspired against him as to how they might destroy him. Same word Jesus used. Is it better to heal or to destroy on the Sabbath? And they're plotting destruction. Destruction's against the rules, by the way, on the Sabbath.

So is marking one for it. So is planning on it. It's interesting in Mark the way that Jesus responds to them. It says, yes. They they did break your traditions.

Why is it that you break the law of God? Why is it that you break the commandments of God? There are six days which work should be done, so come during them and get healed, and don't do it on the Sabbath day. You know better. I've taught you better than that.

Don't be coming in here asking anybody. She didn't ask. Jesus was just filled with compassion. Jesus also said in that Matthew 12 and Luke six story, it says that learn what this saying means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

That's Hosea six six. If you go next, says, and the knowledge of God, who God is. Actually, get to know who he is. I I desire that you would know God more than I want any kind of burnt offerings. Your religiosity is pointless if it's not driven by true appreciation and understanding of who God is.

So back to the story in Luke 13. Here we are again. The Lord answered him and said, you hypocrites. This is this is the synagogue leader he's speaking to. But it's not just him.

It's plural. You hypocrites. Does each of you on the Sabbath not untie his own ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it? Well, of course, we do. Of course, we do.

I mean, you gotta gotta gotta gotta water the donkey. Yeah. It's just part of life. That donkey didn't know it's the Sabbath. Just knows it's thirsty.

Yeah. Of course. And we made allowances for that in our traditions. We made allowances for that. You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead it away to water?

And this woman, still quoting Jesus right here, and this woman, this dear precious lady right here, a daughter of Abraham. That's pretty rare that you read that in scripture. You hear sons of Abraham all the time. But it sort of elevates women, I think, here. And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is.

She's of the lineage. Now the the gospel is for every tribe, tongue, and nation, but this she's no doubt about it, a daughter of Abraham. A daughter of Abraham as she is whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years. Eighteen long years. She's been doubled over and could not stand up at all.

Should she not have been released from this restraint on the Sabbath day? Really? Really, people? And as he said this, all his opponents there's the plural. There were more it's more than just the synagogue leader.

There were a lot of people who had their arms crossed and agreed with him. All his opponents were being humiliated. That's an outside force. We can humble ourselves. That's a possibility too, but that's not what was happening.

They were, by the word of God, being humiliated. And the entire crowd was rejoicing all over all the glorious things being done by Jesus. There's more than this, but this little story that I thought, man, that little story caused great rejoicing from the woman and the rest of the crowd, The crowd that were not caught up in their religiosity. And that's the end of that little story, but he adds on two different things at the end of it. Two different examples for the same thing.

One of them is for men and one of them is for women. It's interesting. I think both are for both, but he presents it as a man and a woman. So he was saying, what's the kingdom of God like and to what shall I compare it? Well, it's like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his own garden.

It grew and it became a tree and the birds of the air, birds of the sky nested in its branches. We can press this analogy and we can try to figure out what every single syllable means in it. But I think that what it means, especially since he presents it boom boom like this, I think what it means is there's this little bitty thing. This little grain, mustard seed. And it's gonna be one of the biggest trees we have in these parts.

And it's gonna give shelter, and it's gonna give safe harbor for the birds of the air. There are gonna be other people who are able to rest because of this little grain. Now Jesus has his disciples with him. He's got twelve, one of them is a devil. So he's got 11, let's say, that are getting his lessons and they're taking it.

He is sharing the seed and then it's going from there. This little bitty band of disciples, he says, this is what the kingdom of heaven's like. It starts small, but it invades everything that it touches. It gets bigger and bigger. Actually, let me go to the second one.

The second one makes that point even better. To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It's like leaven. Now last week, we used leaven in a negative sense. He said, be careful disciples.

First and foremost of all, it was the very first warning he gave out of five warnings and two options, alternatives at the end, five warnings. The first one he said is, be on your guard against the leaven of the pharisees. The leaven of the pharisees is hypocrisy. So hypocrisy is something that it doesn't take very much hypocrisy to seep into the whole assembly. In this case, he's using it to represent the kingdom of heaven.

The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and she hid it in three sata of flour. Three sata, if y'all are numbers people, measurements people, is 1.125 bushels of flour. So a bushel basket of flour. And she took just a little bit of leaven and put it into that flour, into that meal, and it would permeate the whole thing. It's hard to hard to believe how little sourdough it takes to make a big old mess of sourdough pancakes, isn't it?

It's like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three saute of flour until it was all leaven. It will do its work. When Christ said, I'm gonna build my church, he meant it. He's gonna do that. And the way he's gonna do that is he's sowing the seeds into lives that are humble before him, willing willing to listen to the word that he's given them, be obedient, and go forward.

Religiosity is not the way forward. Are you with me? Anger is not the way forward. We're being tempted to anger all the time in our society. They're stirring the pot all the time, both sides.

No judgment here. It's just the way of our times. The gospel gives offers peace. To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? Something that starts small and then grows on from there.

I mentioned I mentioned this little family that he owns. We are sending them out into the world. And if I ask him what the examples are, what was like the leaven or what was the gospel message, he would tell me a different thing. But I'm saying, you can see the fruition of it that it's made a difference in their lives, both Florine's and Violetta's life, and in the lives of their girls, and in their Sunday school classes, and at the Smiths checkout stand. It grows from there to where who would have thought this is the way to do it?

Well, that's the truth though. That's the way the truth works. It gets inside of us, whoever we are. It gets inside of us. And if we're humble before it, it makes a difference and it transforms our life and our relationships.

So I don't have something to compare it to. I think that's the last slide. Would you stand with me, and we're gonna sing My Faith Looks Up to Thee. Great words in this. You may not know the tune.

We'll have two verses to figure it out. How about that? We're singing the first two verses.

Thou lamb of Calvary. Save your divine. Now hear me while I pray. Take all my guilt away me from this day thy rich grace impart strength to my fainting heart my zeal in spite thou hast died for me. Oh, may my love to thee pure warm and changeless be a living fire.

Amen. And as a benediction today, we're gonna go to James one. I think it's helpful. James is very, very practical. The gospel in work clothes.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Every one of us should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. I think that that requires some grace, giving some people some grace, right? Because anger is going to happen to us. It's going come upon us when we least expect it sometimes.

But slow to become anger, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. There's no amount of human anger that's going to force someone into submitting to God. Right? It's just not going to happen. Usually, when we get angry, the other person gets angry.

And then we put some space between us. God Almighty, would you do your will and your way among us? You are a unifier. You are a peacemaker. You are a miracle worker.

God, may we never forget that, and may we turn to you. May we listen to your command and be obedient in humility. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.