Welcome to this Come to Jesus Daily Devotional as we pick up our Luke, Exploring Who Jesus is series. Today, from Luke 13:10-17, we reflect on how Jesus wants to work through us to bring many to freedom in Him.
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‘On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.’ (Luke 13:10-17)
Sophie Scholl, a member of the German resistance group White Rose, defied Nazi rule during World War II. Alongside her brother Hans and other students, she secretly distributed leaflets calling for an end to Hitler’s regime and the war. Despite the Nazi laws that made resistance punishable by death, Sophie believed in justice and human rights. In 1943, she was caught distributing leaflets at the University of Munich. After a brief trial, Sophie, Hans, and a fellow member were executed. Her bravery in standing against oppression has made her a symbol of resistance to tyranny and injustice. Before her execution, Sophie said, “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause?”
Now this illustration of breaking ungodly rules may seem a bit extreme. However, let’s not forget that breaking the Sabbath was punishable by death. The religious leaders’ hatred and desire for Jesus’ death grew, in great measure, by the way that He seemed, in their eyes, to mistreat the sabbath. Jesus was not a man who kept rules because of fear. He, in fact, was not breaking the sabbath laws, but was going against the man-made rule of the religious leaders. Grant Osbourne writes:
‘The OT only stipulated that the Sabbath was to be holy and a day of rest from work (Exod 20:8–11, Deut 5:12–15), but the Jewish people needed directions on what constituted work on the Sabbath, so the Mishnah developed thirty-nine rules on what could or could not be done then.’
In their desire to honour God’s Sabbath commands, the religious leaders made up additional rules in order to protect God’s laws, and this misapplied ‘zeal’ for God meant that they were failing to love people and were even harming people.
On another occasion, when these religious people challenged Jesus for picking corn to feed His disciples on the Sabbath day, Jesus responds with words that should direct and be seen in all who follow Jesus:
‘If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”’ (Matthew 12:7-8)
Too many, and you and I, can easily put ‘sacrifice’ - our devotion to acts of worship - over showing ‘mercy’. Too many of us are so caught up in church, Bible reading, prayer etc. (all vital things) whilst being too busy to make time for those who need to see God’s love through us.
Sabbath rules, nor any other of God’s laws, were ever intended to make someone unkind and unmerciful. Jesus reveals their hypocrisy as he points out their willingness to help their farm animals whilst being unwilling to help this ‘daughter of Abraham’ - one of so much more worth than an ox or donkey!
I’ve spoken about a Christian’s approach to The Sabbath in other devotionals - In essence that we rest in Christ rather than a particular day - but today I want us to see that we must all be prepared to break man-made rules and risk ourselves in order to serve God in our mission to bring people to freedom in Christ. In today’s account, we are again seeing Jesus love and compassion toward the suffering and He wants us to join Him in His mission to crush Satan under Jesus’ feet, as John puts it:
‘The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.’ (1 John 3:8)
Response
What does this teach us? Firstly, it teaches us to beware making up rules that we presume to be God’s will. Secondly, it teaches us that we live in a fallen world in which people are suffering, and we are to be led by Christ’s love in doing all that we can to help people. Thirdly, it teaches us the power of prayer over The Kingdom of Darkness - we are to pray for people who are being assaulted with temptation, depression and sickness. Fourthly, we see that in order to be fully devoted to God and His will, we must be prepared to break ungodly rules and risk being hated; our devotion to following Jesus may create enemies, but others, as we read in our text, will be ‘delighted with all the wonderful things’ that Jesus is doing through us.
Let’s pray together
“Lord Jesus, I thank you for your beautiful example of true obedience leading people into freedom. Help me to fully and correctly obey your word in service to others. May many see you in me and come to worship you as a result. Amen.”
Community Group Notes
1. Notices
It might be good to begin with notices. Please share from this week’s Church News.
Please ensure that you and your group are aware and have the details for our week of prayer next week.
2. Icebreaker
How has God been speaking to you from His Word this week and how has this helped you?
3. Worship together
Let’s begin our time together by lifting our eyes and hearts to worship our great God. Perhaps you have readings and songs that you would like to use together. Let’s be open to the gifts that the Spirit wants to give in order to encourage one another.
4. Study and pray together
This week is ’SIV Week’ (Serve, Invest and inVite) and so we will give most of our time to thinking and praying about helping to bring our community to Jesus.
Our message on Sunday, as we restarted our Luke, Exploring Who Jesus Is series, was from Luke 13:10-35. This section, although seemingly separate parts, is joined together by the idea that although many reject Jesus (Luke 13:10-17), nevertheless, the Kingdom is growing (Luke 13:18-21) and, although this is true, it’s not automatic and we need to tell and call people to respond to the gospel (Luke 13:22-30), being fuelled by loving compassion that overcomes fear and rejection (Luke 13:31-35). In summary, we could put it:
Jesus’ Kingdom is growing and we must play our part, fuelled by compassion.
Please read Luke 13:10-35 and discuss:
Did God speak to you about anything from Sunday’s message?
What promises does this text make about the success of the gospel and how are we to respond to this?
What does this text teach Christians about their role in the spreading Kingdom?
SIV - Do we have any stories of how we have ‘Served, Invested, and inVited’ recently?
SIV - Spend some time together talking and praying about who and how you are seeking to bring your community to Jesus.
Let’s pray together: Pray for the Spirit to fill us and move us to be like Christ who mourned over Jerusalem’s current rejection of Him.
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