Straightened Up

In this week’s message from Luke 13:10–17, we reflect on the bent-over woman healed by Jesus—a powerful picture of how Christ frees us from the burdens that weigh us down. Tune in to the podcast and be encouraged by the truth that no matter how long you’ve been bound by sin, shame, or sorrow, Jesus still sees, still calls, and still heals.

Transcript

Luke, you've heard that a lot this year, right? Because we're in year C, and in year A, it's Matthew. In year B, it's Mark. And in year C, well, it's Luke. Okay?

The three synoptics are covered in the three year lectionary cycle. So turn with me to Luke chapter 13. Hey, we finally made it out of 12. You know, that was a tough one. 12's and listen, let me tell you, the way 13 opens up, and the rest of 13, it's tough, too, all right?

But our text today, it's a great one. Stand with me once you found Luke chapter 13, and then find verse 10. Notice these words here, as found in Luke 13:10. This is the word of God. Now, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, and just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for 18 years.

She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, woman, you are set free from your ailment. When he laid his hands on her immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured her on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, there are six days on which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be cured, and 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 manger and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for 18 long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day? When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame. And the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. Jesus, thank you for your holy word.

And we pray now that you, Holy Spirit, would come. And just as you inspired Luke to write this and oversaw the. Wow, guys, microphone's getting out of control here. And oversaw the writing of this text. Lord, we pray that you would inspire us today to see what you want us to see and to be who you want us to be.

We pray in your most holy name. Amen. You can be seated.

Well, the text is quite clear here that this lady is in the sanctuary, which is a great place to be, by the way. You know, it's funny that the first time in the Gospel of Mark we see a demon. It's actually in the church, if you will. It's in the sanctuary. It's in the place of worship.

And so don't think that just because you're at church, it doesn't mean that there's not demonic activity, okay? And in fact, when the light comes, then that is when the darkness is exposed, in fact. And so you would think that. Here's another instance, however, this is not one where there's deemed possession, but rather, it seems, oppression. And for 18 long years.

And, you know, when you're bent over in this sort of way, imagine somebody. I mean, you've probably all seen it, right? Doing this number, right? You're not looking up, but rather down. And it's maybe an elementary thing to notice, but this lady is apparently at least what we're supposed to see here.

And some have interpreted this only as spiritual, some as physical, some as both physical and spiritual. That's kind of where I land is she's actually physically bent over. Now, the other thing is maybe not just looking at a phone, but have you ever seen someone that's just. The world is so heavy on them that the shoulders are sagging, the head is down. Have you ever seen someone shamed?

Have you ever been shamed? You know, Baylor used to animate this the most. I'm a quite animated person at times, and so I guess some of my kids get that from me. But Frank, who's Baylor, by the way, for some of you who don't know, that is our second son. And when he would get in trouble or found out to be doing something, man, that dude's head would drop.

I mean, you remember this? He's right here. So it's not like he's not in the room, but he would just, you know. And then when he got mad, too, like he didn't get his way, you know, hey, buddy, stop doing that, right?

And, you know, I just have a picture that some of us, maybe today, some of us come in here and we're just downtrodden. Like, we're heavy with the weight of the world. We're heavy with just life, as we say, right things. It's gotten to us this week, and we just come in here drooping, bent over, looking down. Not up, not up.

Worship is for us to look up toward God, know not the things of this world, but beyond that. But we can't if we have this ailment, like this lady who is crippled, as we might say, over and for 18 years. You ever gone through a struggle for 18 years? Some of you may have.

And so she finds herself here in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and Jesus heals Her. And it's beautiful the way he heals her. It's one of these personal healings, like Jesus always does. You ever notice he doesn't just blanket heal everyone. He doesn't walk into a hospital, say, voila.

Okay, thanks. See you later. You guys are out of business. No, no. He doesn't come into a town and just say, hey, anybody that raises their hand is going to be healed.

No, no, no, no. Every healing is personal.

And it's different, quite frankly. You know, mud in the eyes, spittle. I mean, you're like, what's going on here? Right here? It's pretty normal, if you want to put it this way.

He calls to her, and then when he announces over her that she's healed, and then when he lays his hands on her, she straightens up. She straightens up.

And yet we even kind of say that, right? In kind of a colloquial way. We just say, like, you need to straighten up, you know, straighten up this room. Right? You need to straighten up your life, man.

What do we say? Order your life. Rightly. Order your room in a way that we can get through it, Right? It's safe, like it's functional.

And, you know, some of us come in with just a messy thing going on inside. Yes. I mean, I've been there. And at times it's more ordered than not. We don't even ask for it.

We just. We get impacted by something, crisis, betrayal. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, things get disordered, don't they? You ever seen. I mean, we all look out the window, you know, you're not supposed to, but, like, we look, when there's a crash, there's a wreck, everything's out everywhere, just slung about.

And here's the thing. When that happens, and it's going to happen, by the way, it will happen for all of us. The important thing is to allow Jesus to come and put back into our life what he wants and leave the rest out there.

There's been a few times in my life where I felt like by circumstances or people, my life was just unpacked. It was like everything that was in here just. It came out all over the place. And I remember, like a vision I had in my head. Not like a crazy spirit, just a vision that I had that stuck with me is me sitting around and here's all these little things in my life.

Like it's this box and that box and. You ever moved before. It's a disaster, you know, lose stuff. I don't never see it. Again, you know, kind of thing.

It's like, I think that's kind of what the Lord wants to do when that kind of stuff happens. He wants to trade out some stuff that we can actually do without.

We don't always think, there's no way I could ever live without that. You know, that bitterness, that unforgiveness, that attitude. Think about this. You know, some of us have lived into an identity, lived into something that was spoken over. Well, you're just not a good people person.

And we're like, yeah, you know what? I'm not a good people. Then you take a test online that just circles around to that same thing. Yeah, I'm just, you know, I'm not a people person. I mean, I hate to be redundant here, but just like I said last week, if you're not a people person, well, here's the thing.

Heaven is going to be filled with. Guess what? Not just God, but his people. Hell is the only place where we go to escape others. It's utter darkness and loneliness.

So anytime we feel ourselves edging that direction, God forbid it. Now, I'm not getting on. You know, I get it, you know, introverted, all these things. I'm actually that way. Even though, you know, oftentimes my life doesn't show it.

You think, oh, no, that dude's super extroverted. That's not actually how I recharge, you know, in my life, okay? But that doesn't mean I get to escape people now. My lovely wife has to remind me of this often. In fact, she's like.

Because I'm like, I'm going to get in trouble here saying this. But she's like, hey, here's our week something. And I'm like, can I get one night love? And she's like, honey, that's what we're here for. I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right.

You're right. Not building my kingdom, right? We're building the kingdom of Christ. And we give of ourselves and we open up ourselves even after we've been hurt. And I know that's hard.

Listen, I know that's hard. When you've been hurt, you then want to close up shop, you know, often use that illustration, you know, when you. I actually did this the other day. I got stuck by this. I don't know what it was.

I was weeding, right? De. Weeding my grass. Well, my flower bed. And I stuck my hand in there, man.

Oh. And what do we do when we get hurt? We draw back and cover it. You know what I mean, now when you go to the doctor, what are they going to do? Let me see that.

You know, in fact, I was cutting wood way back in the day. Justin knows where I'm going with this. But I had my hand on there. And, you know, it's a long story, but I popped that splitting ax that weighed eight pounds, and boom, it landed right on my thumb. And I thought the thumb, thumb was off.

I picked up my thumb, ran, and da, da. You know, and like I said, I'm a little animated at times, right? And I'm like screaming and crying. And he's like, show me the thumb. Show me what's going on.

And I just. I couldn't because when we're hurt, this is exactly. We pull back and cover it. Like, no, show it to me. You know, and he actually threatened me, I won't hold that against him, but he did threaten me and said, hey, look, you're going to go into shock and you're going to die and all these things.

I was like, okay.

And there was my thumb. It was still there bleeding and all this. But. And so. And then I had to show it to the doctor as well.

Jesus saying to some of you, show me, show me. Now, he's not going to grab. Grab our hand. That's not how he does it. 100%.

That's not how he will do it. Show me, show me. Come to the great physician. Does anybody in here need healing? Jesus, if you don't, that's the start of.

You need to get a diagnosis. Okay, where do we go for that? Right here. God's word in the light. That's why they have those big lights in doctor's offices, right?

Okay, now this lady stands up straight, right? Straighten up. Now, because of the touch of Jesus. Because here's the thing about Jesus, I love it when he, the Holy One, touches what is unholy, when the whole one touches what is broken, when the ordered one touches what is dead, disordered, guess what happens. He doesn't become disordered or unclean, but what he touches becomes clean, healed, and she rejoices.

And wouldn't you. And don't you. When the Lord does something like that, you ought to rejoice. I mean, there's been some things that have bound me in my life. I didn't even mean to get tied up into them, but it tangled me up in a web of sin, deception, darkness and weight.

And if you could have seen my soul, you would have seen this bent, this bent to sinning, this bent to my inwardness. Because you know, when you bend on over it, it's just like what Augustus incurvatus inse is the heart curved in on itself. That's the description of sin. It curves us ever inward until we're totally locked into ourself. And that's a terrible place to be.

Can't you agree with that? You ever been just stuck in your head and you can't get out and, and you're just there and like you're in the same setting, same house, same spouse, same job, but nothing feels the same. Why? Because you're just stuck here in yourself, in your anxiety, in your depression, whatever it is, you're stuck there, bound, bound. Let me tell you, that's not just some natural thing that is the enemy.

Like, and we need to recognize with Jesus here, like, he says that was an evil spirit that found that woman. And then he reiterates it down at the bottom of the page, says it was Satan.

And you know, because of original sin, we're all bent towards sinning, bent toward taking care of number one, first and foremost, self interested, self centered, full of yourself. Now I look out here and you don't, you don't look like that. I mean, I tell you that all the time. Like, you look, you like nice folks, good Christian folk, you know, let me tell you, lurking beneath the surface, if we're honest, if we get God's light on things, you see, not comparing to the neighbor, not comparing to our spouse, not comparing to, oh, Pastor Marshall, no, instead comparing to Christ.

Then brothers and sisters, there is some healing. We need to go to the doctor, we need to see the physician and we need to show him what is there. He already knows. He already knows, but he wants to heal. He wants to heal.

It's kind of funny, but it's kind of not this synagogue leader, right? This guy. Every time I've read this, even the first time I ever read it, I think I laugh because I can just hear because I kind of get like this sometimes if I don't want something driving and I know, you know my lovely driving experiences, I will. Sometimes I just don't understand why, like, why would you do that? Why would you slow in the left leg with the turn signal when there's 20 people waiting on you, like, why do that?

Like that has to be utter incurvatis insult, turned in on oneself right with yourself to do that. Right? And I'm just like, I don't understand. I just keep repeating it. That's the way I see the synagogue leader.

He's Just going around. I just don't understand. You know, he's saying to the crowd, right? I don't get it. I mean, we have six days where people can be healed, and you had to choose the seventh day, the Sabbath day.

Like, I just don't. I don't understand. Does anybody understand? I mean, you know, this is what he's doing, making a fool of himself. Because here's the thing.

The Lord of the Sabbath is there. Like, he's the one who created it.

And what it shows us is this, first, legalism is not greater than mercy, okay? So following the rules is not greater than mercy. And we all know that, right? Like, imagine. Well, imagine being my parent.

And here I am freaking out about my thumb being off, right? And then having to take me to the emergency room, okay? And then go in the speed limit, you know, like, can we get there a little quicker? I'm gonna die. You know, that's what I thought.

You know, you put the flashers on and you break the law, right? I mean, that's. And it's like, if somebody really had a medical emergency, I would want you to do, like, hey, I'm getting over, bro. Like, I got you. Hey, go ahead.

I mean, cops do it all the time, right? They turn the light on and break the law.

Well, they do it sometimes when they're not. You know. There's also something I complain about. But nevertheless, listen. Mercy over law.

We all know it. We all know it. There's a way to do things. But when someone is in immediate need, you do what you got to do. And this is what Jesus is doing here.

Same thing that David did. You remember the classic example, they were starving and they took from the showbread the holy bread, and they ate it as a meal. And you know, they're like, right? But again, mercy is greater than law, because here's why. The whole purpose.

Think about it. The whole purpose of the law is to make us merciful like God. It's for us to share in his divine nature. And so when we're sharing in his divine nature, we no longer need the law. Which isn't that Paul's point when he talks about the law and grace, right?

That's the whole point. When you're filled with love, you don't need love. Like, for instance, you know, there's probably, like, marital rules. Well, Jessica and I have thrown those out the window because love is greater than rules. But you know what?

If you're having trouble in your marriage, you probably need to put some rules in there, right? Yes, you do. You know, like, open up your phone and say, hey, what's mine is yours, right? You look at everybody that I'm talking to, et cetera, et cetera, right? Like that's a rule that's good to buy.

Do we have to enforce these rules? No, because why? Love is abounding. You understand what I'm saying here is laws go out the window when you are full of love, full of grace. Now, laws, again, like Paul says is a teacher.

They teach us, but they're never enough. In other words, if I only followed marital laws but didn't love Jessica, you think she's going to be okay with that? Of course not. Any more than if my sons and daughter obeyed me to the T, but hated me. See, that's where we get into pharisaism, isn't it?

This is what this guy was doing. He's trying to follow the law while this lady is suffering. He could care less. We got to do it by the book. And the book is in person now.

He's in the room. It's kind of funny that, that. I mean, it's kind of interesting that the early church fathers interpreted the 18 years. My small group was talking about this earlier in the week. Not this part, but we were wondering why 18?

You know, because the Bible never sort of just randomly says things, you know, for no reason, right? Well, you get to 18 with 10 and 8. And in fact, in the Greek, it actually says 10 years and 8, 10 and 8 years. So rather than just like 18, it's 10 and 8. Well, what's the significance?

You know, 10 commandments, Old Testament, eighth day, what is that? It's Sunday. Right. So you've moved past the whole week, the Sabbath being in that seventh day, and now it's the eighth day, which is the first day of the week of the resurrection. It's the New Testament.

And the early church fathers saw this numerology as symbolic that Jesus brings together here in the healing, both the Old and New Testament. Not to disregard the Old Testament and throw it away, but rather to bring it to its final conclusion, to fulfill it, which is in his own person. He is the mercy of God because he is God and he's showing mercy on this lady who's been bound by Satan for 18 years.

I'm curious today if you have something that you've been carrying with you, maybe even for 18 years, perhaps maybe longer, and, you know, it's just kind of become part of your identity. You're just like, yeah, it's just who I Am.

That's a lie. That's a lie. If it's sinful, that's a lie. Now if it's weakness, if it's just human frailty, you forget things, right? Well, that's not sin.

Okay, but if it's addiction, maybe it's pornography, something that's just replete in our culture. And our state and government are trying to curve that, right, curve us away from that bent to please ourself in that way. But nevertheless, it'll never work. Law never heals. It just doesn't.

It can create a couple barriers, but it never heals. But you know who can heal even that, and I know it is Jesus. He can heal it. He can heal it. He can actually put together, renew our mind and transform us to where our actual desires shift.

Now, you can't do that. Trust me, you can't do that. And I can't do that for you, but his healing touch can. And listen, I don't care if you struggled with it for 30 years and you just substitute whatever for what I just said. You substitute something, your thing, right?

Holding grudges, that's your thing. You just do it, lying, just about whatever, deceiving people, whatever it is, bitterness, envy, greed, whatever, you just substitute right there. No matter how long you. How many times you've fallen down, you know what's important is today you get back up and straighten up by his power for his healing touch.

A day like that's what matters right now. Get up. You're better than that, right? That's the point. The enemy comes, says, that's who you are.

Just get used to it. You're going to fail. You're going to do this. That is not the gospel. That's not the good news.

No, no good news says you're better than that. And the Holy Spirit coming into our life can transform us and raise us up, straighten us up so we can look up.

That's why I think Jesus mentions here in dealing with this belligerent synagogue leader. I just don't understand. Six days, he's still over there saying all this. Listen, listen, sir, you go ahead and take care of your animal, which would have been the equivalent of a pet, okay? They wouldn't have really had dogs and things like this, cats.

They would have had donkeys. They would have liked their donkey, their ox, etc. They would have lived in the house with them. In fact, listen, when that thing needs water on the Sabbath, you'll take it out there to go get water. I know you will.

And he knows he will, okay? And in fact, the law permitted it in the Old Testament. Jesus is actually quoting part of the Old Testament by saying this. How much more? Notice not just this woman, we're just told woman right here.

And that's not derogatory at all. It's more like this. This lady, not this woman, this daughter of Abraham. Now, what did Jesus just do? Well, Jesus gave her a new identity, didn't he?

You see this? By speaking that over. She's not just some woman. She's not just some crippled woman, some bent woman, some crooked woman. But now, no, this one is not an animal.

She's not evil. She's a daughter of Abraham. And Satan had bound her. She didn't bind herself. Satan had done this.

But Jesus, he's the freer. He frees us.

No matter what kind of sin. Just please hear me. No matter what kind of sin you get yourself all tangled up in, Christ can untangle us. His grace is always greater than sin. It can't win because sin is darkness.

Christ is light. And when light comes, darkness must flee. There is freedom in the name of Jesus Christ. And, you know, we identify ourselves with so many things. Like a certain look, right?

You know, like, we just like, you know, I just decided back in high school, like, this is gonna be my look, you know, And I've kind of kept with it, you know, I still even have some shirts from high school because I just really haven't changed that look. Now, some of you, your look is like, to change all the time, right? So it's like, oh, totally. New person every 10 years or something, you know, I don't know. But like, everybody's got, like, something.

They're basing their idea. We follow these influences. Oh, yeah, man. I want to look like that, you know, or our identity, like, you know, again, I'm a husband, which I love.

Father, pastor, teacher, like, all these different hats that I wear. But the most fundamental relationship identity that I have is Son of God for you. Daughter of God. That's the one that's dead there at the base of my identity.

But you know what's so awesome about God is God is enough. Like, literally, he is enough. Okay? So if we have God and we don't have anything else, we have everything. If we have everything in the world but don't have God, we have nothing.

Yet he gives us a family. And that's why I love how Jesus says, this is a daughter of Abraham. Notice that he doesn't say daughter of God, does he? He could have. He's his Daughter.

Why? Because friends, some of us come from families that are dysfunctional, broken, disordered. You think? Yeah, I wish I was a part of, like, that kind of family. Let me tell you, even as great as our family, like, is the Dagg family.

I would say as great as we could possibly be as a family. Guess what? We understand that blood relations are not always equal, Eternal. And you know what's a more fundamental relationship for the Dags all across the board? Son of God, not grandson of God.

Remember East Stanley Jones, God has no grandchildren, only sons and daughters. It's a personal touch. It's a personal word spoken. It's a name change. You see, we're the bride.

And so just like the traditional way with, with husband and wife is that the wife takes on the name of the husband. That's a Christian idea based on the Bible, is that we're the bride of Christ that takes on his name.

You know, so thankful that when we take on his name, we also get a larger family than our biological one. Much larger. And, you know, I've needed that family, family in my life multiple times. You're not alone. That's a lie.

You're not alone. No one cares. That's a lie. There's plenty of people who care. If you will open yourself, straighten yourself up and look up to that heavenly family that he gives to us.

He gives us that identity. He unlocks that key and the door opens that. You look around the room, all ages of people in the. All sorts of socioeconomic. And you know what we can all say to one another, brother, sister.

That's actually why we, you know, I know it's kind of antiquated to use those. We're like, hey, brother, so and so. I still use it. Here's why. Early church used it.

The medieval period used it. Reformation used, Enlightenment period. They all use it. Just hangs around. Because here's the fundamental thing.

We are family. If we are one in Christ, if we share the same father, then we're all family. If we are married to Christ and we take on his name as his bride, and what a wonderful thing, because you know what? I don't deserve it. There's been times where I felt like everybody abandoned me.

And you know what God does is he doesn't just say like, well, hey, I'm still here. He sends a person like that lady right there, my wife. You don't know who I'm pointing to. And online, when I was like, done, you know, I mean, I really had reached the bottom, like, I just kept thinking like, here's what I had in my mind, like, the floor kept dropping, you know, And I'd land about, okay, can't go any further than that. Okay.

There's another person that left me in my life. There's another heartbreak, there's another failure on my part.

And she was there. And I don't know if you've ever been to a place like that where you just felt like really your life had no meaning and. And no purpose and that you were a waste, you know, I was there, and she spoke over me differently.

It's a weird picture, but the way I saw her was like back in the Western days, you know, like I had been shot. And I'm in this middle of the street and everybody's just like, ooh, that's bad. And she stand over me with a shotgun like, dare you come and get him? Ain't happening. And she stood with me.

And I had some brothers that stood with me. One of them happened to be my biological brother. But I had some other brothers that are in this room that I would say and they know are equal to my biological brother. Because here's the thing. When the blood of Christ unites us, the relation goes deep.

And it's eternal. It's not temporal. It's eternal family. It's the heaven family. But if we're bent over in our own sin, turning to our own ways, looking down, always complaining, and in this vicious black hole of selfishness, we'll never see that family, never be able to help.

You have to come to light. As much as it hurts to reveal it, to be exposed, to confess as much as hurts, it's necessary for healing. It won't happen without confession. So are you bound by sin? Are you bound by law?

Seek freedom in Christ. Call out his name. Call on the family of God.

He'll straighten us up. He'll make us delight in Sabbath rest like the woman. We can say as Psalm 103 does, bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

May we rejoice in his freedom. Amen.