A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on January 18, 2026.
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 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. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. 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.” 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? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said these things, all his adversaries were put o shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him. He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? 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.” And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened” (Luke 13:10–21).[1]
On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus stopped in a town large enough to have a synagogue, and there, Luke tells us, “he was teaching . . . on the Sabbath” (13:10). In larger towns other than Jerusalem, synagogues were built as regional houses of worship. They typically consisted of one large rectangular room with bench seating along each wall. Synagogues were run not by professional priests but lay-elders who oversaw everything from administration to weekly worship. Sabbath services involved singing psalms, liturgical prayers, scheduled Scripture readings, a sermon, and a concluding blessing.
And it was into a service likely like this that Jesus was invited to read and preach. But on this Sabbath day he did more than preach; he healed. Luke tells us, “there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, ‘Woman, you are freed from your disability’” (13:11-12). Note the careful language Luke uses: She suffered from a “disabling Spirit.” This was not an ordinary disability but a manifesting possession, a spiritual bondage, that had disabled her for eighteen years. Knowing this, Jesus had compassion on her, calling her to himself, and miraculously healing her.
What a wonder to behold, and for such a suffering soul! Can you imagine the amazement? It would make you want to break out in joyful song. But they didn’t, because as the disabled woman stood upright, there stood the ruler of the synagogue, incensed by Jesus’s work on the Sabbath. “There are six days in which work ought to be done,” he said to Jesus. “Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day” (13:14). I would imagine you could have heard a pin drop on the synagogue floor. That is, until the Lord responded.
Necessary Mercy
What specifically does God’s moral law command regarding the Sabbath? As the Fourth Commandment is stated in Exodus,
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Ex. 20:8-11).
Or, as it is restated in Deuteronomy,
Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day (Deut. 5:12-15).
The distinction between the two records, in general, is the use of the commencing imperatives “Keep” and “Observe” and the examples of God’s resting at the conclusion of creation and Israel’s redemption from Egyptian slavery. In addition to these two records, there is additional case law in the Torah and admonishments in the prophets, but the Sabbath command itself is contained in the Decalogue.
So, did Jesus break the law by healing the woman on the Sabbath? Was Jesus’s miracle a kind of work, and if so, was it a kind of work that broke the law? If we define the Sabbath as rest from any kind of work, then, yes, Jesus broke the Fourth Commandment. But he didn’t, did he? Why? Because, as Jesus said in the Gospel of Mark, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). The Sabbath was given as a gift to us that we that we might have one day out of seven to worship and rest. And it is a gift that frees us to show mercy as the need arises, as Jesus explained: even the hypocrite knows to lead his ox or his donkey to water on the Sabbath.
Why then was the ruler of the synagogue indignant? Because Jesus had broken his definition of keeping the Sabbath, a transgression outweighing any good gift of God. It was a definition concocted from rabbinic tradition that had superseded the Word of God. It was a definition that had enslaved the hearts and minds of many in Israel, blinding them to God’s mercy. It was a definition that ignored the spirit of the law and missed the Sabbath’s meaning. And so, Jesus rightly responded to the angry Pharisee, and the rest of his kind directly, shaming them for their lack of mercy.
But before we look at what Jesus said, let us consider first how Luke introduces it: “the Lord answered him” (13:15). The Greek word translated “Lord” (kyrios) is the same word the translators used to translate the OT covenant name of God (YWHW). Luke intentionally interjects the truth that neither the ruler of the synagogue, nor his fellow hypocrites, is the King of kings and Lord of lords. There is only one, and he is “lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28).
And the Lord of the Sabbath would not let the ruler’s ignorance rest, confronting his hypocrisy with his very own actions and revealing the mercy of God shown to a woman freed from enslaving bondage. And how appropriate that this happened, of all days of the week, on the Sabbath. “Call the Sabbath a delight” (Isa. 58:13), Isaiah says, because it reveals the mercy and grace of God, even to an unnamed “daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years” (Luke 13:16). And it is this truth that led Jesus to ask the people therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?” (13:18).
Kingdom Growth
What does this incident and the meaning of the Sabbath have to do with the kingdom of God? We might think the passages separate but for the connecting “therefore” (3:18). But consider Jesus’s questions: What is the kingdom like? What is a comparison? To help us, Jesus gives first an analogy of a mustard seed sown that grew into a tree, big enough for birds to nest (13:19). His second analogy is yeast, “like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened” (13:21). The mustard seed grows from small to tall; leaven spreads often unnoticeably throughout. How does the kingdom of God grow, how does it spread?
If the kingdom of God is his sovereign rule and reign over his people in Christ, we might assume that it would grow through worldly wealth, power, and authority, but it doesn’t. In fact, how it grows is often beyond human comprehension, often invisible to those outside the kingdom. It starts with the seed of the gospel sown in the heart of one soul but grows into a kingdom made up of the redeemed from every tribe, tongue, and nation. It starts like leaven working from one woman in a first-century synagogue in Israel to nations around the world today.
On that Sabbath day in that synagogue, before the people rejoiced at the glorious things done, before Jesus’s adversaries were shamed, before the ruler’s indignance, before the woman glorified God, before she came to Jesus, he “saw her” (13:12). We do not know her name. We do not know where she lived. We really know nothing about her, except this: Jesus saw her, and called her, and she came in faith, and she was healed. And so, the kingdom grows.
It was a wonder worked by the Son of God. It was also a sign given by the Savior of sinners. For, he not only heals but gives life to those who were dead in their trespasses and sins. Just as God showed mercy to that woman that day, so he is merciful to us today. Because of the great love with which he loved us, he calls us to himself, saves us from our sin and death, brings us into his kingdom, not because of anything we have done or said, but by his grace alone through faith in Christ alone.
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
full of pity, love, and pow’r.[2]
Experiencing her Savior’s pity, love, and power, the woman in response, Luke tells us, “glorified God” (13:13). And so shall all who come to Christ in faith.
Sabbath Freedom
Now, return with me once more to that Sabbath day and think again of the Fourth Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex. 20:8). In the Exodus record, the example is given of God resting from his work of creation, an example reinforcing the need of God’s covenant people to rest from their labor but also pointing to a Sabbath rest in God. The writer of Hebrews explains, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Heb. 4:9-10). Just as God ceased from his work, so we cease from our spiritual striving, working to secure God’s favor, and look to Christ whose perfect obedience, atoning death, and victorious resurrection have secured our peace with God. While the ruler of the synagogue was striving to keep Jesus from breaking the Sabbath, Jesus went on to the cross to fulfill it. Though the Pharisees sought to safeguard Sabbath obedience through their best efforts, Christ became our obedience that we might rest in him.
In the Deuteronomy record, the example is given of Israel’s redemption from slavery, an example reminding us of the freedom God’s covenant people have been given to rest from their labor but also the freedom we have in Christ from sin’s curse. Though we were once slaves to sin, in Christ we have been redeemed to “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). “For freedom Christ has set us free,” the apostle Paul explains. Therefore, we “stand firm,” no longer submitting “to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). Trusting in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we “remember that [we] were a slave . . . and the LORD [our] God brought [us] out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deut. 5:15).
It is then, mindful of our Sabbath rest in Christ, that since Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week that Christians gather every Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, to worship, resting from our labor, to celebrate what God has done for us in Christ. Just as the people on that day in the synagogue “rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by [Jesus]” (Luke 13:17), so we rejoice every Sunday at the glorious things he has done for us! We rest from our work to assemble in worship, yes, but our worship celebrates the spiritual rest we have in the finished work of Christ. And we invite others to join us, from both far and near. “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,” the psalmist sings, “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!” (Ps. 67:4-5). And so, we shall, as what began in Israel planted like a mustard seed, grows upward and outward, spreading like leaven throughout all the earth.
It may seem trivial to most, even hidden to many, who consider the salvation of one soul to be too small, too insignificant, like that daughter of Abraham. But this is how the kingdom of God grows, until every elect soul has been saved. “The Gospel must succeed,” Charles Spurgeon preached, “it shall succeed; it cannot be prevented from succeeding; a multitude that no man can number must be saved.”[3]
God planted this little church in this little town thirteen years ago. And to be clear, we’re no big deal in the eyes of the world. In a few generations no one will remember our names. By worldly standards, we are insignificant. But in your life, in my life, in the lives of our covenant children the seed of the gospel is planted, growing and spreading and even carried in ways we cannot comprehend now.
Through God’s outward and ordinary means of grace Christ’s church will grow, both near and far. The world won’t take notice. Why should they? But in the eyes of God we are a mustard seed growing heavenward, leaven spreading across the globe. For, Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] https://hymnary.org/text/come_ye_sinners_poor_and_needy_weak_and
[3] C.H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 20 quoted in Ian H. Murray, The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2023), 251.
Planter, Pastor, Preacher 