Good morning. Please remain standing for the reading of the Word. My name is Colleen Hublin, and I will be reading from Luke 2:40-52.
"And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was with him. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group, they went on a day's journey. But then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances. And when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. After three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, 'Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.' And he said to them, 'Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?' And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man."
This is the Word of the Lord. You may be seated.
Well, good morning, church family! How are we?
Oh, good! All right, I got a wonderful out of it. Well, Happy New Year again! The first Sunday of 2024, we get to be together here and spend time in God's Word.
For us, the holidays, as I had mentioned, were a busy time. Your family was together, and I love my family. You know, I do. I have a good family. Growing up, we would have a lot of fun together. I have two older brothers and a younger sister, and sports were a big part of our family. So even during the holiday season, we were together a lot, and often our conversation would turn to sports.
My dad always likes to be a little bit of a contrarian when it comes to sports, at least with us. You know, we'd always be excited about the next kind of new player and what their potential might be. So we've had a lot of discussion this fall because we're hockey fans, and our favorite team, the Chicago Blackhawks, drafted this young kid. He's only 18 years of age, and he's playing in the NHL. His name is Connor Bedard, and he seems to be one of those kind of once-in-a-generation type talents.
So we have this text stream going whenever Connor does something spectacular. You know, we'll text one another. My dad, I love him for this. I mean, ever since we were kids, I remember he would say, "Oh, did you see so-and-so and what they did?" And he'd be like, "Ah, he's a flash in the pan." That's my dad's saying. "Ah, he's a flash in the pan!" Any good player, you know, on any sporting thing, he would be like, "What do you think about this guy?" "Ah, he's a flash in the pan."
I remember when Tiger Woods first started golfing and he won his first major, and then he went on to win 13 more of those things. My dad, the first time he went, he was like, "Ah, he's a flash in the pan." I'm like, "Ah, then Tiger was a little bit more of a flash in the pan."
So we think Connor might be this special kid, and sure enough, as he's been playing in his first season, he's been doing really well. When I think about our discussions about players and whether they are special or not, I got to thinking this past week about child prodigies.
If you were a parent for the first time, I don't know about you, but did you go through this phase where your children would start to do things, and you'd be like, "Oh, my child is special!" You know, it's like, "Oh, she said her first word," or "He said his first word," "He started walking," and you're just like, you know, you think that maybe your child is special.
Well, I'm going to burst your bubble right now, okay? Whenever you begin to think that someone is—your child is special, you know, I think like this hockey player Connor Bedard being a special hockey player. You think about child prodigies like this man by the name of Kim Ung-Yong. He was a Korean, and he was born in 1962. I want you to listen to this kid, what he was like as a kid. At six months of age, he was able to engage in full conversations. By the age of four, he was able to read and speak Japanese, Korean, German, and English. By the age of four, he could perform complex calculus. By the time he was five, between the ages of three and six, he audited university physics courses. How special is your child, right?
He was said by the Guinness Book of World Records at one point to have the highest IQ in the world. It was estimated to be 210. This is what he was like. And then you have an American, not as, you know, special, but pretty good—Gregory Smith, born in 1990. He could memorize and recite entire books by the time he was 14 months old. He could do his sums and mathematical equations by 18 months old. I wasn't even potty trained until... anyways.
He went from second grade to eighth grade in one school year. He began high school at the age of seven, graduated with honors at the age of nine from high school. He went to college at the age of ten, majored in mathematics, minored in history and biology. He pursued his master's at the University of Virginia as a pre-teen. As a pre-teen, he advocated for children's rights all around the world, and since 1990, the year that he was born, he's been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize five times.
You want to talk about prodigies? You know, you want to talk about kids who are special? I started with Connor Bedard, talking about how my dad says he's a flash in the pan. We don't know yet. Is he a flash in the pan? We don't know yet. I was talking about how some kids we think are special when in reality there are some kids when you compare them, you're like, "No, no, this kid is special."
The reason why I bring up these two illustrations is because today we're continuing our sermon series in the Gospel of Luke. In fact, we're going to be in Luke for the next three weeks, finishing off this section of Luke's gospel before Jesus's earthly ministry starts. Today, what we're going to see in God's Word is how Jesus Christ is not only not a flash in the pan, somebody who's just here and gone, but there are two things about Jesus that are so unique and so special that no other child or human being can ever compare to him.
We're going to see all of that in this record that Luke has for us in Luke chapter 2, starting in verse 40. So here's what I want you to do: open your Bibles to Luke chapter 2, verse 40, and we're going to see the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, why he is so, so, so special.
You know, the text we're going to look at is the only recorded story about Jesus's youth from the time that he was a baby to the time that he begins his adult ministry. Whether it's in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, this is the only gospel that records any event during those years.
Now, what's so interesting about that is we have these extra-biblical books that were written, you know, after the fact that claimed to be written by like Peter or by Thomas—these false gospels. What they did was they actually kind of made up some stories about Jesus. One of the stories is about how he turned some clay pigeons, and he breathed on them, and they became real birds and flew away. Another story is about how he took care of a bully. But these were fake stories; these were made-up stories. The Gospel of Luke is the only gospel that records any stories about Jesus's youth, and it's a story that we're going to see here, and it's going to communicate two things about the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.
Now, to pick up the story, we read in verse 40 where it says this: "And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him." Now, the child here in this verse is none other than Jesus Christ. Now, we're going to look in more detail at this verse along with verse 52 at the very end of the message. The reason we're going to do that is because these two verses serve as a bookend to tell us something very special about Jesus.
But for now, it's just a continuation of Luke's story up to this point. The statement that Jesus grew, that he continued on as a child, from what point? Well, we know from earlier in Luke's gospel that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. After he was born in Bethlehem, after eight days, they circumcised him; they gave him the name Jesus. Forty days after his birth, they took him into Jerusalem, and they dedicated him in the temple. Then they returned back to Bethlehem, where eventually wise men from the East came, and they worshiped the baby Jesus. Then they were warned in a message not to go back to Herod, and Jesus's family, Joseph and Mary, were warned also to flee from Israel to go down to Egypt because Herod wanted to kill them.
So Jesus and his family, they fled to Egypt, and then eventually we learn in the other gospels that they returned not to Bethlehem but they went all the way back to Nazareth, where Joseph and Mary were from. So this story picks up and says, "And so there in Nazareth, the child grew. He became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him."
Now, the story continues in verse 41: "Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of Passover." And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. Part of Jesus's growing-up years involved his family doing something kind of unique for a Jewish family, and I'll explain in a moment what that is. They would go to Jerusalem every single year from Nazareth for this thing called the Passover.
Now, God had established for the Jewish people, as part of their worship of him, as part of their remembering of him, that he established that there were three feasts that you were required to go to if you were a Jewish male every single year, and they all took place in Jerusalem. The three feasts that you would go to were the Feast of the Passover, the Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. These three feasts—and I don't have time to go into detail—each reminded the people of God and celebrated something else in the Jewish people's history.
So they remembered the rescue out of Egypt; that was the Passover, celebrating God's provision is what they did at Pentecost, and remembering the time when they were in the wilderness is what would happen during the Feast of Tabernacles. So if you were a male over the age of 13, you were required to participate in these feasts; you were to travel to Jerusalem.
Now, according to our text, real quick, how old was Jesus when this story takes place? Who noticed? He was 12 years old. He's not yet, according to Jewish tradition and law, considered a man. It's the year right before he would become what they call a son of the law. Eventually, this would be known in Jewish families and in the Jewish faith as his bar mitzvah, if you will—the ceremony that would recognize when a Jewish boy became a Jewish man.
And so that happened at the age of 13. Here's the crazy thing: when you turned 13, you were able to get married. I mean, for all intents and purposes, Joseph and Mary could have been both 13 when they got married. We don't know; the text doesn't say. But you were considered a man. Now, for those of you that might have, you know, sons who are 13, you're like, "No!" But back then, that's when you were considered a man, which is why notice how the text says it was—they brought Jesus with him when he was 12 because that was part of the custom.
You see, when you turned 13, because you participated in all these feasts as a Jewish male, as a man, you would bring your son up typically at least one or two years before they became a man to help train them in what to do during the feasts so that they were familiar with it, so that they could lead their own family in doing it. Because a Jewish male at the age of 14 could have his own family; he could start doing this. So that's why Jesus was going up at the age of 12.
But notice how the text says that they did this every year, and it wasn't just Joseph and Jesus that went up. Who went up with them? Mary. Mary wasn't required to go. The text is telling us something about Jesus's parents that we already know from earlier: they were really devout, faithful followers of the Lord. They were committed to God, and so they would go and they'd participate in these feasts.
And you know what? This text also shows us that they were so devoted because at the time they were living in Nazareth, and the distance between Nazareth and Jerusalem was a distance that would take four days at minimum to travel. So if you were to go up to these feasts and you lived in Nazareth, four days down—here's a picture on a map—four days down, four days back at minimum, eight days of travel. The Passover feast lasted about eight days itself, and so you'd be gone from your home potentially almost three weeks.
And yet they would make this journey all the way down and all the way back, and they would make it at least for Passover once a year. We don't know if the family went to the rest of the festivals, but maybe they did. To give you an idea of the mental and physical energy that it would take them to make this trip, to make it realistic for us, to show their devotion, this would be akin to you or me taking our family on a road trip every year from California to Florida and back again. The amount of time and energy for them to travel was no small thing, but they did it because they were people who loved the Lord, who were faithful to the Lord, and so they made this journey.
Now, notice the text doesn't tell us what happened during the Passover. It doesn't tell us what took place, but let me give you an idea of what it was like for those who participated in the Passover. When you went to Jerusalem for the Passover, the city of Jerusalem would swell with all of these pilgrims. The city would swell, by some estimates, to 200,000 people. People would be bumping into one another. It'd be an exciting time. It'd feel kind of like Christmas time because your relatives, who you might not see any other time of the year, would show up in Jerusalem, and you'd show up, and you'd talk.
So it was a time of worship and remembrance, but also a time of just getting to see people that you maybe normally didn't get to see because nobody was working. You were just going to the temple, and you were celebrating; you were worshiping together. So it was a real kind of a festive experience.
The other day—actually, just yesterday—we went and did the thing my girls love doing so much. We went on one of our family hikes, and we went up to Julian, and then outside of Julian for the hike. I have to say, if you were to go to Julian tomorrow, right, and you could walk around, there was nobody in Julian. I think all of San Diego went to Julian yesterday, okay? And maybe some of you are like, "Yeah, we went too!" The little Julian was packed; people were walking across the street. I was working on my sanctification by not yelling at people, like, you know, not trying to hit people.
I thought about how Jerusalem would just fill with people when I'm watching these massive lines of people trying to get pie and gorge their faces. But, you know, they were all over Julian. This is what Jerusalem was like. And so they would get there, they would find a place to stay, and then they would do something: they would purchase a lamb. They either brought it or most likely purchased it because as part of the Passover, on the Passover day, you would go as the man with your family, if they were with you, and you would line up with everyone else who either was holding a lamb or had a lamb by the string, and you'd be leading them into the temple through the courtyard to the altar where the priests would be waiting.
One after the other, you would bring your lamb up to the altar where the priest would slit its throat, take its blood, sprinkle it on the altar, and would remind you in doing that act how God, when he rescued the people out of Egypt, the last plague that he put upon the Egyptians that finally had them let the people of God go was the—does anybody remember?—the murder of the firstborn, the slaughter of the firstborn.
And so God preserved his people when he sent the angel to ultimately kill the firstborn of every household. God told his people, "If you kill a lamb and you put its blood over your doorpost, I will pass over your home, and I won't kill your firstborn. That'll be an act of my mercy upon you."
So what the people do is they bring their lamb, and they would have that lamb be slaughtered, and the blood sprinkled to remind them how God passed over their firstborn and how God was atoning for their sin through sacrifice. Then you take that lamb that was just killed, you'd bring it to your home, and then you'd cook it, and you'd eat the meal together as a family, and you'd retell the story.
So this is what Jesus saw; this is what Jesus would have experienced when he went to Jerusalem with his family to the Passover. Just as a side note, if you remember during the Christmas season, I told you the story about the shepherds. Do you remember the shepherds who went and they saw Jesus on the day that he was born? I told you that these shepherds were most likely the shepherds who would sell the sheep to the people who were going into, guess where? Jerusalem for the Passover.
I just wonder—this is just pure speculation—I just wonder if Mary and Joseph, year after year, didn't see those same shepherds every time they went back to Jerusalem, and maybe that they bought a lamb from those shepherds because they were in that region. I don't know; it's just something that my mind kind of thinks about.
But nonetheless, they go, they participate in the Passover, and now we get to the meat of it here. Verse 42: "When he was twelve, they went up." Verse 43: "When the feast was ended..." So they'd do the Passover, and then there would be an extended time of feast and remembrance for the next week. It says, "As they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem." But here's the thing: his parents did not know it.
But supposing him to be in the group, they went a day's journey. But when they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. You read that correctly: Joseph and Mary have just lost the Son of God!
Have you ever lost your child for a moment in a store or left your child somewhere and then realized it, and then you had to go back to go get him? I think all families have a story or two about that. I remember, as a parent, how I felt when one time we were just in the old Sports Authority in Escondido, and CeCe was young; she was just a toddler at the time, and she slipped away for a brief second and got herself into the racks of clothes, you know, that have the circle around them.
It was just like a vanishing act. You know, all of a sudden you look up, and we're like, "Where's CeCe?" Nobody knew where she was. And then, you know, I started running to the front of the store just to make sure, like, you know, she didn't leave. And Hannah, you know, CeCe, and she did not return to us. You know, they're looking, so one of the girls pulled apart the thing, and there was just CeCe just sitting there, you know, just kind of looking at us. Your heart just sank.
Now think about Mary and Joseph. I mean, CeCe is special; your children are special. But if you've been entrusted with the Son of God and you lose the Son of God, right, you're feeling a little something. And so they go back to look for him.
Now notice the text says they were a day's journey outside of Jerusalem, so it's going to take them a day to get back. So they're going to be away from Jesus at minimum two whole days, and they know this. And so what does the text say? It says, "After three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions."
Now, that doesn't mean that when they got to Jerusalem, it took them three days to find him. What it means is they were gone a day, they had to travel back a day—that's two days—and so on that third day, after searching, they found him. And where was he? Well, to their surprise, we don't know. They found him in the temple, and what's he doing? This is just so fascinating to me; I don't want you to miss this.
He's sitting with the teachers, and he's asking them questions, and they're answering him. But notice what else—they're also asking him questions, and he's answering them. Look at verse 46 again: "After three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers."
And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. I mean, they're upset, I'm sure, because they were looking to find their child. But when they get to Jerusalem, they find him in this very unlikely place. For these three days, he's been there at the temple. I don't know what he did at night; I don't know if they just taught through the night, if they were so amazed by the dialogue. We don't know what they talked about, what was so astonishing to them about what he was saying.
But what we know is that when his parents saw him, they were taken back. They were hearing some of the things that he was saying. They don't immediately go after him; they're taken back by this whole experience. One of the things that breaks my heart about this when I read it is Jesus, as a 12-year-old, is having this real—it seems beautiful—dialogue with the teachers, the scribes, the religious leaders. He's asking them questions; they're asking him questions; they're answering him; he's answering them. And there's this beautiful dialogue that's happening.
But I'm here to tell you that for the rest of Luke's gospel, any other time that we see Jesus with this group of people, this kind of harmony does not exist. In fact, it's only antagonistic towards him. Something happens in the subsequent years, and I think it's specifically because of about what we're about to—who Jesus understands himself to be and what he claims that begins to change everything.
Now, his parents' astonishment quickly goes away. Look at what it says in the text. His mother, verse 48, said to him—this is the most classic parent thing, not just a mom thing, a parent thing—"Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress."
Parents in the room, have you ever responded to a child in this way? I know that I have. This is just so real. Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus, she is so worried about what has happened to her child. And while at first she's astonished at what she sees, she can't help but be like, "We were worried sick about you, son!" I mean, we get her emotions, don't we? I mean, it's legitimate; it's legitimate. She can't hold it back.
Remember, her son is sinless and perfect. She's not okay. And so she comes and she offers this kind of rebuke of Jesus. She even throws in the classic—and it reads the same way in the Greek as it does in English—"Your father and I..." Right? The classic, "Your mother and I were so..."
And then look at how he responds. Now, just quick—I forgot I didn't say this the first hour—Jesus was perfectly obedient because he was sinless in all ways. And so just in case you're wondering, his being in Jerusalem and having stayed there when his family left, obviously his parents didn't come to him directly and say, "Jesus, we're leaving; you need to come with us right now." Because if he had stayed in Jerusalem and his parents had said, "We're leaving; come with us right now," he would have been disobedient.
So there was some miscommunication here. And look at Jesus's response. He says, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?" Have you heard this verse before? Are you familiar with this? This is so profound. I started the whole message by saying that Jesus Christ is not a flash in the pan, and Jesus Christ is the most unique child, person, who has ever lived.
And part of that we see right here in this verse. And you say, "Dave, where do we see Jesus being so unique in this verse?" Well, because right here, Jesus is showing us that he has a divine nature. Right here, Jesus is making a claim to his divine nature. And you don't get it unless you understand how people viewed what Jesus says here.
See, for you and I to call God our Father doesn't seem like that big of a deal. In fact, Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name." We sing songs about Jesus, or we sing songs about God being our Father and all those things. But at this time and at this place, the only reason we can call God as Father is because of the uniqueness of Jesus that we see in this passage.
Nowhere in the entire Old Testament—all 39 books—nowhere up to this point has anyone ever referred to God as their own personal Father. As a Jewish person, you simply did not do it. You could not claim that kind of intimacy; you could not claim that kind of relationship with him. There are 14 times in the Old Testament where God is referred to as Father, but it's always in reference to God as the Father of the nation of Israel. God, one time, as the Father of Abraham. But that's not Abraham calling himself or calling God his Father; that's somebody looking back and saying God was Abraham's Father. But that's all with hindsight.
Jesus here, though, is coming and saying, "You need to understand why were you worried about me? Did you know that I would be in my Father's house?" See, let's break this down. The temple where Jesus was was the place where God was said to dwell. And so there is Jesus in the temple, in the place where God is said to dwell, and he says, "Did you not expect me to be in my Father's house?" He is claiming that God is his Father, and the only way that that would make sense is if he had a divine nature.
To have that kind of intimacy was reserved in only a way for the Messiah who would come, who would come directly from the throne of God. And this is what Jesus is saying about himself. And you say, "Really? Did the people think that's what Jesus was getting at?" Well, look at this. Look at what he says, verse 50: "And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them." Their minds could not comprehend how their 12-year-old son could claim God as his Father because the mystery was too great.
This is it; it astonished them. Church, what we see here is that Jesus knew himself to be the Son of God. Jesus knew himself to be the Son of God, and to claim that he was the Son of God was to claim divinity for himself. It's why when John wrote his gospel, he just kind of cuts out all of Jesus's youth and his early life and all of those kind of things. But when he starts, he says this: this is in John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God." And who is the Word? Jesus Christ. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
When you go down to verse 14, John makes it clear: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
Whoever you understand Jesus to be, you have to understand him as the Son of God, as God himself. And we say, "Why does this matter? Why focus on this?" Well, it matters because if Jesus was not the Son of God, and if God was not his Father, then the promise of Jesus to take and make us sons and daughters of God would be an empty promise. He could not enter us into that relationship with the Father if he did not have it first.
We could not get our adoption as sons and daughters unless he was the true Son of God. You need him to be who he sees himself to be; otherwise, he's just one more man who came to this earth who made empty promises that he could not fulfill. Jesus Christ was God, but in the flesh.
And the reason why this is so profound in light of this whole passage is because remember how I said Jesus had a uniqueness about him—something that was so special about him in comparison to anyone else who ever lived? And that was because not only was he 100% God, but he was also 100% man. And that's what the first verse of this passage gets at, and the last verse of this passage gets at.
See, sandwiched in between those two verses is Jesus's declaration that I am the Divine Son of God. But the way he starts and the way he ends—Luke has for us a reminder that this Divine Son of God was at the same time 100% man. And let's just be honest: for your brain and my brain to get around the idea that one person could have two natures at the same time—see, you and I don't have two natures. You and I don't exist as both divine and human at the same time—100% God, 100% man.
It's hard for our brains to get around it, but it's hard for our brains to get around it because we are—and for some people, this answer doesn't suffice, I'm sorry—but we are the creation, and we are not the Creator. Have you ever seen a magician perform a trick, and you say, "How did they do that? That's impossible!" Because as you look at the illusion that they do, you think, "Yeah, there you go." You know, how can they do that? It makes no sense.
Now, because you know that they are not mystical and magical, you know that there's some way that they pulled it off, right? And when you see a magic trick done that you can't explain, you don't sit back and say, "No, no, it wasn't real; it couldn't have happened." You know, that's no—you say, "No, no, I just simply can't understand it. I don't know how I did it because I'm not the creator of the magic trick."
Now, it wasn't a magic trick for God to be fully man and to be fully God, but please don't think just because you're this created being that you can get yourself in the mind of God—how God could have two natures but in one person. Yet that's what the Bible proclaims. And you say, "Where do we see it proclaiming that?" Well, look at verse 40 again: "And the child," it says, "grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him."
Verse 52: "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man." Those two verses are pointing us to Jesus's human nature because while Jesus's proclamation—the very first words that Jesus ever speaks in Luke's gospel—are this proclamation that he's the Divine Son of God, these verses remind us that while he is the Divine Son of God, he is still a human being; he took on flesh.
See, this is what the Incarnation is all about. The Incarnation says that God the Son took on a human nature; he took on flesh. This was not a subtraction. Jesus existed eternally as God the Son, as spirit, and then when the time came by the foreordained plan of God, he took on human flesh. He added to his divinity that human nature, and that's what Luke is reminding us of.
Don't ever look at Jesus and say, "Oh yes, he was the Divine Son of God," and neglect his humanity. Because when we see Jesus, we see the human nature on full display. He grew; he became strong; he developed like every other person. Jesus did not skip over any of the steps of what it meant to experience humanity.
It just struck me this week: before Jesus ever performed the miracle and walked on water, this verse tells us that he had to learn to crawl. The feet that would walk on water were the feet that first had to learn to balance. Jesus, before he carried the weight of the cross, had to allow his body to naturally develop the strength to lift up his own head.
Have you ever seen a baby trying to lift their head up for the first time, and it's just bouncing all over the place? The Divine Son of God went through that experience. Before Jesus ever uttered the words to the paralyzed man, "Your sins are forgiven," before he ever uttered the words to the stormy sea, "Be calm," before he ever could speak those tragic words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he had to learn as a toddler to form words with his own mouth.
You want to talk about humility? You want to talk about condescension? That's what Jesus Christ went through. We got to be careful that we so don't elevate his divinity that we forget the humanity of what he went through as a human being. And he had to go through those things because, as I've said in the past, he needed to experience the full range of what you and I went through.
Jesus took on, church, the physical and intellectual limitations of our humanity. Did you know that he didn't just simply skip over the teenage years? Some of you as parents are like, "Yeah, if we could skip over the toddler years, just get to where they can clothe and feed themselves." Some of you are like, "Let's skip over the teenage years." You know, "What, can I just have a college graduate who's fully financially supporting themselves and just have grandkids?"
No! Jesus went through all of it. The very laws that he created to govern the universe, he subjected himself to. Now, with respect to his divine nature, let's be clear: there are times in his earthly ministry where Jesus, through the Spirit's revealed power in him, God the Father made things known to him in order to accomplish the ministry that he had called him to do.
But we must not fall into the error that some Christians fall into where they think, "Yeah, no, I believe that Jesus was fully God and fully man." But when they say that, what they mean is God the Son came down to the earth and plopped himself into the vessel of a human body—that he had the mind of God always, then he just took on a human body. That's not what this means.
The Incarnation means that he was fully God and fully man. He limited himself physically; he limited himself intellectually. The text literally tells us he had to grow in wisdom and knowledge. Church, Jesus did not take any shortcuts with his humanity, and he didn't because it was what was necessary for us.
One of the things that strikes me in this passage is how the God who gave to his people the commandment, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right," submitted himself to obeying his own earthly parents. Look at verse 51: "He went down with them." After the whole experience in the temple, he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.
As part of his living the life that we should have lived, that's why he had to take on full humanity. He even obeyed his parents that he knew were sinful. I mean, there are times where our kids think, you know, they know better than us. The reality is Jesus knew his sinlessness, and he lived with parents that he knew were not as perfect as his heavenly Father, and yet he submitted himself to them.
The mystery of the Incarnation is unbelievable. But why am I talking about all this? Why are we looking at the uniqueness of Jesus, his divine nature and his human nature? It's so that I could come to say these two things: one, Jesus understands what it's like to go through all the growing pains of life. He understands what you go through; he understands what you've experienced. And so he's not some abstract person. He, in the fullness of his life, can relate to you in the fullness of all your range of emotions and experiences, and so you can go to him.
It's why I'm going to jump ahead here to the very end and just make this statement: listen, the Son of God became a man so that men could become sons of God. He experienced all that he did so that we could have this restored relationship back to the Father. He, as I said, lived the life that you should have lived. Where you were disobedient, he was obedient. Where you spoke the words you shouldn't have spoken, Jesus held his tongue.
And he did all of that so that he could present himself to the Father as the perfect substitute for you and for me and to be able to say, "Adopt David into your family, God the Father, as one of your sons. Adopt this woman into your family as one of your daughters because I am giving them my perfect record."
And in my divine nature, my sacrifice is an atoning sacrifice because it is sufficient in my divinity to cover his sins, her sins, their sins. That's why Hebrews 4:15 says this: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."
There have been some really special children that have walked the earth whose intelligence far exceeds mine, even when they were four years old—and yours, by the way—but none of those children were the unique Son of God who took on humanity so that he might be one day the perfect Passover Lamb for you and for me.
When you understand Jesus in his divinity and in his human nature, you realize he alone is worthy of our worship, and he alone is the one that we must run to to have the life that we were created to have. For Paul would write in Galatians 3:26, "For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith."
And it's why John would write in 1 John 2:23, "No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father also." Do you accept Jesus as the Son who came as the one who is the only one from the Father, full of grace and truth? Because if you know him as divine, as human, as the Savior, well then you get to enter into the kingdom of the Father.
I would so desire that we as a church would know and walk in the adoption that we have because the Son came down. And that if there's anyone in this room who does not have that intimacy with the Father, know that you can only get it through Jesus and be saved.
Let's pray together.
Lord, what you experienced and what you went through for us, there is no comparison. It's why we say that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved. And that's just not being freed from the judgment of hell; it's not just having our sins forgiven, but it's to be able to live as adopted sons and daughters today.
It's because Christ, you came, that we can now call upon God as our Father and that we know him to be a loving Father who does not turn his back on his children but welcomes us in because he welcomes you.
So, Father, we do come, and we pray that as your people, we would dwell in these truths, that we would see Jesus in the fullness of who he is, and that every single day we would confess him as the one that you sent, the one whom you provided to make peace with us.
And even right now, as we come to the communion table, Lord, help us to celebrate that peace has been purchased just through the Son who came. To the praise and glory of your name, we ask this, and all God's people said, "Amen."
Amen. Unlike Mary and Joseph and others who would come to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Passover and to go through that ritual sacrifice, today we get to come, and we don't come to make a sacrifice; we come to taste of a meal.
We often say, "Taste and see that the Lord is good," because Jesus, when he was on this earth, established the Lord's Supper in taking of the bread and taking of the cup as a meal to remind us of what he has accomplished.
So I want to invite the members of the church family that are going to help to serve communion, if you'd come forward at this time. We're going to pass the elements; we're going to take them together.
And as you taste of the bread and the cup, what you're tasting of and what you're creating is the goodness of Christ who came, that he was that sacrifice for your sins and for my sins. And so no more sacrifices need to be made. Praise the Lord for that! Amen.
Let us come to the table; let's take the elements together.
on Jan 08, 2024
