Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Luke 13:10-17, NASB
- Series: Luke (2025-2027), no. 48
- Date: Sunday, February 22, 2026 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
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When Priorities Become Clear
When Priorities Become Clear I had the opportunity this week to introduce some of you to the man who was my pastor during my teenage years and into my college years. I told that group of people that when I say all the time from the pulpit, my pastor growing up said this or that, I said it’s him. I didn’t hear what he said after I walked away, so I’m just going to say he exaggerates whatever he told you. He exaggerates.
But one of the things I remember him saying numerous times was that when we are confronted with what matters most it’s amazing how short our list of priorities can get I experienced that this week I have to sometimes think and process out loud what I need to get done and what order I need to get it done. And sometimes I’ll ask Charla, help me walk through this, help me figure out what I need to do. And so Sunday night I was telling her about all the things I had that I needed to get done this past week. Things I needed to get done here at the office that just have been on the back burner and needed to get taken care of.
Things that I needed to do at home. I told her I needed to do our taxes. Last week. Not that I’m looking forward to it, but I’m looking forward to having it done and behind me.
So I needed to get that done. I just had this whole long list of things that I needed to get done. And then all of that changed on Monday morning. I got a phone call from Donna.
Her husband had passed away, and so I knew there was going to be a funeral. That shifted the priorities a little bit. And then about 12.30 Monday afternoon, I got a call from my dad that my grandmother had passed away. And even though we expected it, we didn’t know when it was going to be.
That completely turned my priorities upside down. My mind had gone from, here’s this list of all these things I want to accomplish by the time I walk out of here Thursday or Friday to, I need to figure out what absolutely has to be done for Sunday, and I need to get that done, and I need to be with my family, and I need to spend the rest of the week being with my family and being available to Donna’s family. The list got very short. And the things that were on my list before, they weren’t bad things.
As a matter of fact, they are still things that need to be done. So, everybody’s feeling good today, right? Okay.
I’m sorry, that might have been a tasteless joke. Everybody’s feeling good. Nobody’s going to call first thing in the morning. There are still things that need to be done, but they just didn’t need to be done last week because there were things that mattered.
Learning to Prioritize What Matters Most
There were things that mattered more. ### Learning to Prioritize What Matters Most As believers, we have to be able to prioritize things and that’s something I struggle with. I think it’s the, I think maybe it’s a symptom of the ADHD but everything feels important. Everything feels important. Everything feels urgent and the reality is some things are less important and less urgent than others and we have to be able to prioritize those things.
When it comes to what we’re doing to serve the Lord we have to prioritize what is it that he’s He’s given us to do. What is it that we are doing because it needs to be done? What is it that we’re doing because we want to do it? We have to figure out what the priorities are, and it’s hard to prioritize sometimes.
As a matter of fact, I’d submit to you, this is just my opinion, but I think that when we go astray as believers, and I don’t mean astray into sin, but I think when we get off the track of where we’re supposed to be going, it’s not as frequently that we’re off into things that we shouldn’t be involved in as it is we just are prioritizing the wrong things. Things that may be good, but they’re not important enough to deserve the first priority. This morning, as we’re in Luke chapter 13, in our study of Luke chapter 13, we’re going to look at what Jesus said to some people in the synagogue who were having difficulty prioritizing. And from it, I think we’ll be able to see the things that Jesus prioritizes, the things that Jesus values, and I think it serves as a good example for us in order to know what it is that as we’re serving Him, what are the things that we need to put first, and what are the things that need to go further down the list. ### Jesus Teaches in the Synagogue Luke chapter 13, verses 10 through 17, records this scene: But starting in verse 10, here’s what Jesus said, or here’s what Luke records.
And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. That is, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who for 18 years had had a sickness caused by a spirit and she was bent double and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, woman, you are freed from your sickness.
And he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God. But the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, there are six days in which work should be done, so come during them and get healed, 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 stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?
A Woman Set Free
As he said this, all his opponents were being humiliated, and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by him. ### A Woman Set Free So, as this story opens, Jesus was teaching in the synagogue. This was not an unusual occurrence. They would rotate who would come in and do the reading, and especially if a traveling rabbi came through, they would often give him an opportunity to read and to teach from the Old Testament law. And so Jesus is there in this synagogue doing this, and he sees this woman who was there.
She had been physically and spiritually afflicted for 18 years. Now, when you go to the commentaries and you read, people debate whether she was possessed, whether she was not. I really don’t think it matters to the story all that much, or I think Scripture would have made it clearer. What Scripture does tell us clearly is that she was sick, she had this ailment that caused her great trouble physically, and there was a spiritual dimension to it, that somehow Satan was afflicting her in this way.
And so she’s bent over, she’s likely in tremendous pain. And one thing I’m struck by is just her dedication to be there. You know, I get a little bit in pain and I don’t want to do anything. My knees are hurting.
I didn’t realize we were going to have to, at my grandmother’s funeral, I didn’t realize we were going to have to carry the casket a quarter of a mile. That’s a whole other story. But my knees and my back were really feeling it. I didn’t want to go anywhere after that.
Your knees are a little sore. Your knees can be sore at home or at church or wherever. And I’m not shaming anybody for not being here. I’m just saying for me, it’s so easy to say, well, I don’t want to go do this.
I don’t want to follow through with that because of this reason. This woman had been stooped over for 18 years and still came. And I know some of you are in that same boat. You’re in tremendous physical pain and you’re still serving the Lord.
But she had been afflicted all these years, and it had to mess with her emotionally as well. When you struggle and suffer for 18 years, it’s got to do something to your frame of mind. It’s got to be depressing for somebody. And so this woman is suffering in every conceivable way.
And she’s there in the synagogue, and it’s not recorded for us that she came and asked Jesus anything. It’s not recorded that she came because Jesus was going to be there and she wanted to be healed. She’s just there at the synagogue, and Jesus sees it, and without being asked to, Jesus addresses her in verse 12, and He pronounced her to be freed. He said, you are freed from your ailment, from your sickness.
It’s an interesting word there. You’re not just healed, you are free. You are set free. He wasn’t dealing with just the physical ailment, all of this stuff that was afflicting her.
The demonic power, the physical ailment, the emotional toll that it took on her, he says, you are free. He set her free completely. And then in verse 13, he comes and he lays his hands on her. And immediately, she’s able to stand up straight again, and she began glorifying God. She is praising God in the midst of the synagogue, which, as I understand it, that’s what you’re there to do, right? You’re there to glorify God.
At Odds with the World
And this is where the problem arises because there were people in the crowd who didn’t like it didn’t like the way that this played out and we see here right from the very beginning that Jesus’ priorities frequently put him at odds with the world that shouldn’t surprise any of us Jesus’ priorities put him at odds with the world that’s why he got crucified ultimately the reason he was crucified is because it was the father’s plan for that to happen but from a human standpoint they crucified him because he didn’t go along with their misinterpretations of scripture he came to fulfill scripture he came to fulfill scripture as the word made flesh he came to be the messiah and the son of god and that didn’t fit with their expectation of what was supposed to happen And so they nailed him to the cross. So we see this woman in verse 13. She’s glorifying God. And rather than glorifying God with her, the ruler of the synagogue was outraged.
It says that this man was indignant. You know, you can picture somebody stomping their foot and, how dare you? It’s that kind of reaction. The woman was just healed.
You’ve watched this woman suffer for 18 years. You would think you would rejoice with her, you would glorify God with her in this healing, but the way Jesus looks at this situation and the way the leaders of the synagogue, represented by this top man, the way they viewed things was so diametrically opposite that they couldn’t even come to agreement on the fact that this is something we should celebrate. Now, outwardly, his objection is to the fact that Jesus healed her on the Sabbath. As a matter of fact, he turns and tells the people.
Notice he doesn’t address it to Jesus. This is such a junior high move. I don’t want to address it to Jesus. I’m going to talk about Jesus to you like he’s not even here.
Instead of talking to Jesus, the ruler of the synagogue looks at the people, and I’m going to get on to the people. There are six days of the week in which to work. You could come and look for healing on those days. That woman that we have no evidence, we have no reason to think she was there looking for healing.
She was there to worship. There’s no evidence that she asked for healing. There’s no evidence that anybody was showing up at the synagogue for healing because that man couldn’t heal them. The only reason there was healing was because Jesus was there.
But he addresses it to the crowd and says, see, don’t you show up on the Sabbath looking for healing. You go get your healing one of the other six days. I’m sorry, this woman has been healed. She’s been set free and we’re upset because it was at the wrong point on the calendar.
Instead of confronting Jesus he confronts the crowd so outwardly his his reasoning was that it was Jesus healing on the Sabbath but we’ve seen enough of these stories and we’ll continue to see these stories throughout the gospels where these religious leaders who stand in opposition to Jesus they raise one objection outwardly, but there’s another one inwardly. And while he says it’s because of the Sabbath, really it’s an affront to his pride and his sense of authority. He didn’t like Jesus healing her because he couldn’t. He didn’t like somebody setting the captives free.
He didn’t like somebody teaching with authority that wasn’t his. He didn’t like somebody coming in and doing the things that Jesus did because he’s supposed to be the one. We see that over and over with these people. What this man thought was important, his traditions, his rule over the synagogue, his observance of the rules, what he thought was important and what Jesus thought was important were so different that Jesus had to correct him publicly.
What Jesus prioritizes put him at odds with the world. Put him at odds with the world that day. It put him at odds with the world the day he was crucified.
It put his followers at odds with the world when they began to preach the resurrection. ### At Odds with the World Following Jesus and prioritizing our lives according to his priorities will put us at odds with the world too. If we’re walking with Jesus and the world just applauds everything we do, we’re not doing something right. We’re not walking with Jesus the way we think we are. Not that we want to go out and stir up conflict, but if we’re walking with Jesus, it’s going to lead to opposition because Jesus was at odds with the world.
People More Than Things
And we’re going to talk about some of the things that he prioritized that put him at odds with the world. ### People More Than Things Verses 15 and 16, go there with me, and we see that Jesus values people more than things. When we get to verses 15 and 16, He begins talking about what they do on the Sabbath and what they don’t do on the Sabbath. He says, you hypocrites, does not each one of you, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water? By the way, I want to be very clear, when they’re talking about Him violating the Sabbath, Jesus never once violated an Old Testament law correctly understood.
What Jesus was guilty of violating was their misinterpretations of the Old Testament law and the human traditions that they had built around those laws. It’s been a long time ago, but earlier in the book of Luke, we talked about this. We talked about the oral law, which were the traditions they had built around it. We talked about the things that they had decided they could and could not do on the Sabbath and decided to treat those like God’s law.
And I gave you the example of today there’s a wire that stretches around the island of Manhattan so that it can be considered one dwelling so we can walk a certain amount of distance on the Sabbath and carry a certain amount of stuff on the Sabbath and it’s a loophole to not violate the law. That comes from all of this oral law that they had built up. When Jesus came and healed, it wasn’t a violation of God’s law. It was a violation of what they had erected around God’s law.
And God’s law allowed them to show acts of mercy. And he says, you know this, you understand this, because on the Sabbath you’ll even go out and you’ll take your ox or your donkey out of the stall and you’ll lead them to water. That’s work. But it’s also an act of mercy because they’re thirsty.
They need water every day. He said, so you’ll do that and you don’t even blink about it. Because you care about your property, you care about your stuff. And then he goes to verse 16, this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day.
So Jesus is making a lesser to greater comparison that obviously animals, okay, we love them, but they matter less than people. Someone somewhere is going to be shocked by that statement. Animals matter less than people. Am I saying be cruel to animals?
No. I’m saying they matter less than people. I love my chickens. I love my chickens.
They make me laugh. But if there’s a situation where there’s peril, and one of my children is in danger, and my entire flock of chickens is in danger, I’m saving the child. And that’s the point here. The donkey or the ox, they matter less than the person.
And not only that, he mentions that she’s a daughter of Abraham. She’s not just a person, as important as that is. She is somebody who is part of this covenant with God. This is somebody that God knows and loves and cares about.
She’s one of his chosen people. And he’s saying, you are not affording her the same mercy that you would afford to an ox or a donkey. As someone who’s part of this covenant with God and a daughter of Abraham, she would be their sister, and she should be treated as more valuable than livestock. I find this passage extremely convicting, because it’s so easy to prioritize things.
And maybe it’s our stuff that we prioritize. Sometimes, for me, things is my to-do list or my calendar. It’s so easy to prioritize things over people. But this passage right here teaches us that God cares more about people than He cares about animals, than He cares about possessions, than He cares about buildings, than He cares about schedules, than He cares about any of it.
God cares about people because He created us in His image. He knows and loves each and every one of us. As His followers, as Jesus’ followers, we have to prioritize people over things. As a matter of fact, a lot of these things are just tools to minister to people.
Those animals are there to support our livelihood so we can take care of the people in our lives. Possessions are there to be used by people. Buildings are here so that we can minister to people. The things on our schedule should be filled up with the things that minister to people because Jesus values people more than things. ### Redemption More Than Tradition So we look at the end of verse 16 there when he says, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?
Redemption More Than Tradition
We see that Jesus values redemption more than tradition. Now, don’t get me wrong, tradition is not a bad thing. We talk about this every year at Christmas. We talk about our traditions, the things that we find comfort in.
Traditions are a wonderful thing. If you ask my kids about family traditions, there are some things they’re really attached to. The day after Christmas, we have our family Christmas, and it started out years ago as tamales, and that was just too much work. Now it’s taco casa.
But everybody’s excited because there will be presents and Mexican food on December 26th. There’s nothing wrong with that tradition. We have traditions here. There’s a certain order to the way we do things and it’s not a bad thing.
The problem is when that tradition becomes more important than God or God’s plan. Traditions are a great tool to point us to God. They’re terrible when they come in between us and God or us and God’s plan. What Jesus was doing with this woman was redemption.
What Jesus was doing was bringing her the physical and spiritual freedom that she needed. He was giving her a taste. I want you to hear me on this. He was giving her a taste of the freedom that He would soon die for, to purchase for her.
Jesus’ mission here was our redemption, setting her free. Their rules about the Sabbath were tradition. And again, I’m not anti-tradition. I’m anti-tradition that comes between us and God.
And in this case, we have a clear conflict between God wanting her to be set free and the people saying, oh no, you can’t do it because it messes up our tradition. It doesn’t fit with the Sabbath. Guess what? Jesus values redemption more than tradition.
He said, should she not have been released on this bond on the Sabbath day? He set her free from the bondage. And he demonstrated that his role there was not to uphold their traditions and their rules and their made-up stuff. His role is to redeem us.
Later on in the book of Luke, we’ll see that Jesus said his purpose in coming was to seek and to save that which was lost. Because Jesus values people more than things. Jesus values redeeming us over upholding things like tradition. Traditions can be a wonderful thing.
But they should always point us to Jesus Not pull us away ### God’s Glory More Than Our Credit And then we come to verse 17 And we see the result of this conflict It says as he said this All his opponents were being humiliated you know what good that’s a pretty good outcome and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by him that was kind of the point Jesus didn’t come into the world for the express purpose of condemning the world He says that in John 3, 17, I believe, that the world through him might be saved. But sometimes when our behavior stands between God and people, that behavior needs to be condemned, and sometimes we need to be shamed for it to wake us up to the reality of it. And that’s what took place here. It’s not that unusual if you’ve ever felt convicted as you’ve read scripture God is bringing those things to our attention can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked out here and somebody said that was good but it really stepped on my toes and I’d say and I’ll usually respond mine too and I’ve been sitting there dealing with it all week stepping on my toes we need that conviction we need that wake-up call from God’s word to point us to the fact that something has gone wrong. And what he’s doing here is that synagogue ruler was making it all about him and his group of people and what they wanted and their traditions and their power and all of that. And they reacted so badly to the simple fact that this woman was healed and God was being glorified.
God’s Glory More Than Our Credit
And for Jesus to call this out publicly and point out publicly where they were wrong, and to shame them in that way points out that Jesus values God’s glory more than our credit. That’s really what this boils down to. They were mad because they had a certain way of doing things that brought them admiration from the people that everybody said how wonderful they were, how godly they were, how well they managed the synagogue and Jesus came in and was a threat to that. This woman was healed to the glory of God.
Verse 13 says, she was glorifying God. As soon as she could stand up straight, she was glorifying God. And that was a threat to these who considered themselves to be important in the synagogue because he challenged their traditions and their authority. And his answer and his explanation shamed them so that all his opponents were being humiliated.
The result of this was that the entire crowd was rejoicing because he put them in their place? No. They were rejoicing because of all the glorious things being done by him. In the midst of what should have been uninterrupted, undiluted, unadulterated, glorifying of God, this man and those around him, because Jesus said, “You hypocrites,” there were others who felt the same way he did.
They had to speak up and put their two cents in because it was a threat to them. And Jesus shut that down, and here we are back where we should have been all along, to God be the glory, great things He has done. This is the way it’s supposed to be. God’s work is there to bring Him glory.
That’s what God values. God is not concerned about our credit. God is not concerned with our glory. I’ve heard people say, well, that doesn’t sound right.
That sounds, I’ve not heard believers say that, but I’ve heard people say that sounds selfish of God. It’s not selfish if that’s what you deserve. God deserves the glory because of who He is. And as a church and as a people of God, we need to be careful about the things that we glory in.
It’s not about us. It’s not about making a name for ourselves. It’s not about building a brand. It’s about glorifying Him.
Now, I think if we do that, people will notice. And it’s okay if somebody says, good job. We all want to hear. We all especially want to hear from Him, well done, good and faithful servant.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to hear that just understand that God values his glory it’s not about you and me getting credit, it’s not about Central Baptist Church getting credit it’s about God and the work that he’s there to do and we will never ever go astray by trying to glorify God more it’s the antidote for all of our idolatry we will never go astray by trying to bring more glory to God as Jesus followers we should value what he values and we should prioritize the things that he prioritizes we should be concerned about people that can be a challenge just to give you a brief example you know we’ve had to set up some rules and some schedule about the lunch distribution just so we could get anything else done and so we set it up 10 to noon for people to come in and get fed because it was all day and people would just come any time of the day and it was impossible to get anything else done. 10 to noon, you know, sometimes people will ring the bell at 945 and we have a decision to make. Are we going to be sticklers about the rules or are we going to give grace? We err on the side of grace.
They come a little too early or a little too late, we feed them. And there are times in my flesh that goes all over me because there are rules and I’m a rule follower, but God cares more about people than our rules. As I stand here today telling you these things, it’s not because I’m wonderful at these things and you need to shape up. It’s because it’s a challenge that we all face to be able to prioritize the things that He prioritizes.
But if we’re going to follow Him, that’s what we have to do. We have to value the things that He values. We have to be concerned about people and seeing them redeemed by God for His glory. And anything that stands in the way of that puts us at odds with Jesus. So we want to be on the side of Jesus, doing everything that we can to bring glory to God. And helping people find peace with God through Jesus Christ.
