Luke 2:21-52

Okay, Luke.

So as a church, the type of church that we are is that we believe that God's word is perfect, it's inspired, it's our food to grow, it's the authority on life, it's the light that directs our paths.

And so central to our weekly worship services is that we give time, a good chunk of the service, like half of our service, is um looking at God's word and trusting that the Holy Spirit wants to take and animate his word to us, speak to us into our story, kind of graft his word into our lives.

Just like a somebody who's grafting a plant would take one branch and like tie it in with another.

We just believe that the Holy Spirit wants to take his word and um just make his word applicable to us.

So this first quarter, we're going through the beginning of Luke.

Once we start um our Sunday morning services over in the New Century School, we're gonna be going through the first few chapters of Acts.

We'll go through at least up till um Acts 12.

Um, and I haven't made a decision beyond that.

But I think we're gonna go doing Luke chapters 1 through 6, and then starting on um there at the end of March, we'll begin to look at Acts.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

Acts is really key in helping us understand what the church should look like.

And so, as a new baby church, we wanted to see what did, after Jesus went up to heaven, what did the church look like?

So that's the direction we're going.

We've been in Luke since um early December.

We had the awesome opportunity to look at the Christmas story, and now we are finishing up uh John's in like young childhood.

We already covered that last uh two weeks ago, and now we are in uh Jesus kind of growing up uh before he's a man and starts his public ministry.

So we're gonna cover verses 22, Luke 22, or Luke 2, 21 through 52.

So a big text that we're gonna spend um a little bit of time looking at this evening.

So we pick up in Luke chapter 2, verse 21, and this starts with the circumcision of Jesus.

Luke 2:21

So let's pray again.

What we want to do is we want to ask the Holy Spirit to speak through his word, and that's what we want, God, is we want you to take your word that you wrote and your spirit that lives in us, and we we want these things to come alive.

Um, we want them to be alive because we believe you have a plan for life.

We believe that you have a will for us.

Um, you're very aware, Lord, of our obstacles and our handicaps and our illnesses and everything that we bring to the table, which is like problems and sin and weakness.

We bring all that to the table.

And Lord, we believe that you can speak to us.

So uh from this text, God, we pray that you would be with us, that you would speak to us, and we ask just for the truths, the realities of the gospel, that they'd come shining like a light through this text.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Alright, so Luke chapter 2, verse 21 says this when the eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.

Luke 2:21

And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were finished, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it was written in the law of the Lord.

Every firstborn male will be dedicated to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtled doves or two young pigeons.

So the way the text, the way the sermon is going to work tonight is because we're covering so much ground.

We're gonna look at a paragraph or uh we call it pericope.

We're gonna look at that, and then we're gonna ask, you know, what how does this apply to us?

What can we glean from this?

So there's two things I want you to observe from these few verses here.

First of all, Jesus came to fulfill the law.

So Jesus was Jewish, right?

His lineage was that he was on the line of David.

So the law that was given to Moses thousands of years earlier about how the nation of Israel was to live, Jesus came and fulfilled.

So the writer of this book, Luke, is giving an account for a man named Theophilus who's already a Christian, and he's helping Theophilus have confidence in his faith.

He wants Theophilus to have a sense of certainty about this faith that he has in Jesus Christ.

And so Luke has gone out, he's a doctor, he's well educated, and he has spent time gathering narratives and the stories about Jesus.

And so he includes in his account the story of Jesus' dedication on the eighth day.

So one of the things that is key about this passage is that Jesus came to fulfill the law.

You see, there's two ways for us to be righteous.

To be a righteous person, you can either do the law perfectly, you can be an absolutely perfect person, and therefore be accepted into God's presence, live eternally with him.

So all of those of you that are like that, that's great.

You probably don't need to be here tonight.

Um, but all the rest of us need the second option, which is the righteousness of Christ to be imputed to our account.

And what that means is that Jesus did the law perfectly.

Jesus was perfect, and he was the only one that could be the satisfactory payment, the satisfactory sacrifice on our behalf.

And in order to be perfect, he didn't just have to be perfect according to our standard, but he had to be perfect according to the law of God.

And so here, a part of that is God's plan unfolds.

He's got parents who are keeping the law in sacrificing and dedicating their son on the seventh or the eighth day.

So look, flip over to Leviticus, which is uh Genesis at the Genesis Exodus, Leviticus, which is the third book, right?

Leviticus uh chapter 11 gives us the instructions, or chapter 12.

Leviticus 12 gives us the instructions about the purification after childbirth.

So the law, we often think of the law of God as the Ten Commandments, but really there's 613 commandments that God gave to Israel.

For the sake of convenience, we often break those 613 commands into social commands, civil commands, uh, and moral commands.

So the Ten Commandments are the moral commands of God.

Then we have what we would call um the social commands or how society is to run.

So, you know, if your cow um gores another cow or another oxen, like what do you do in that particular instance?

Um so on another occasion, we'll talk about how we relate to those different aspects of the law because um as a pastor, I would and you're you're like at in your farm and your cow gores somebody else's cow.

Like I probably wouldn't go back to those passages in Leviticus, you know, to help you remedy the situation.

But, you know, if you're thinking about stealing, we would go back to the Ten Commandments and um because it's the moral law of God.

So we relate to different aspects of the law in different ways, but uh partly because we're Gentiles and because we're past the cross.

But Jesus was Jewish and he was bound to fulfill the law perfectly.

So that included his mom when he was born.

So in Leviticus chapter 12, verse 8, it says, or start in verse 6, it says, When her days of purification are complete.

Leviticus 12:8

So this is the mother who's given birth, whether for a son or daughter, she is to bring the priest at the uh bring to the priest at the entrance, the tent of the meeting, a year old lamb for a burnt offering, a young pigeon or a turtle dog for a sin offering.

He will present them before the Lord and make atonement on her behalf.

She will be clean from her discharge of blood.

This is the law for a woman giving birth, whether a male or a female, baby.

But if she doesn't have sufficient means for a sheep, she may take two turtle doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering.

So Mary and Joseph, being aware of this law, that this is the custom, this is what they do.

On the eighth day, they take Jesus up to the temple, and they have him circumcised, which means he's brought into the covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, and then they fulfill the law by having him circumcised and then um named, given his name, and they offer this uh sacrifice for sin.

So um, if you go backwards a little bit more, Leviticus 5, which we won't look at now, Leviticus 5 lays out the guilt offering.

That's what this was.

This was a um uh a sacrifice that would be offered to purify a person from guilt.

Now, how did a woman get guilty from having a baby?

I don't know.

But, and we're not gonna cover that right now, um, but the point is this that God lays out this is the sacrifice you should offer.

Here's the crazy thing, right?

Not only does Jesus fulfill the law, but what kind of sacrifice do they give?

What do you see there in verse 24?

What does your version say?

Shout it out, somebody like it here.

It's a pair of what?

Doves doves, yeah, turtle doves or two young pigeons, right?

Um why did they offer that and not a goat?

Why they offer the sheep, like you know, they could.

Well, back in Leviticus 12, it says, if you don't have sufficient needs.

In other words, if you do not have the financial resources to offer the sacrifice, then if you're poorer, basically, you can offer these two pigeon doves, uh, these two turtle doves or young pigeons.

Here's the cool thing that comes through this is that Jesus came from a poor family.

Jesus came from a poor family.

That means that he, Jesus, as the plan of God, right?

When Jesus came into the world, it wasn't an accident.

This was a plan that God had from the beginning of creation to redeem, to send his son Jesus into the world to redeem creation.

So you he's got thousands of years to come up with a plan, right?

Not that he has to think, but the plan is not to be born as an elite king, not to be born in some like prestigious setting, but to be born in a family that was poor.

That's where Jesus was born.

And so when we look at the life of Jesus, we appreciate and we know that his death and resurrection is our salvation.

But there are things in the life of Jesus that we grab onto because our life flows from his life.

And so it was not by happenstance that Jesus just, it wasn't like the stork just landed Jesus and Mary and Jesus, right?

This was the plan that Jesus will be born in a family that is poor.

Which I love.

You know, I spend most of my week with people that are poor, right?

Being poor is hard, right?

It is, it has its own set of circumstances.

Uh, it has all these different issues that come with it that just make life more challenging.

Like if you're poor, probably means you're dependent on public transportation.

You may be like pinching pennies, you may be at the end of the month, you may be like, Yeah, I gotta go to the compassion center and get some free food.

You know, I don't know, what's gonna happen?

Or I've got an interview, I need to get some clothes.

Like, it's hard.

It's hard, and it's also lonely.

And it's easy as a person who is poor to feel like God has looked past me.

He's favored those people with money, but he doesn't really care about me as a person who is poor.

But look at Jesus was born in the family that was poor.

God has no problem being in the midst of poverty.

He is there with you, he is present, he was born basically in the with because there was no even guest stream to stand, he was born on the first floor of that house, animals are around, he was a mess.

And yet Jesus was willing to live and be present in that in that setting.

So, first two things signaling.

First of all, Jesus fulfilled the law.

This is the first, one of the first pieces of that.

Then the second thing is that he was born in poverty.

Second thing, and poverty didn't limit him from fulfilling his mission, did it?

Oftentimes we see poverty as an immense limiting factor, right?

So much limits come with poverty, and yet it didn't limit Jesus from fulfilling his calling.

Amen?

So look at verse 25.

Let's look at Simeon real quick.

Simeon, it says, is there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.

This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel's consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord's Messiah, guided by the Spirit.

He entered the temple.

When the parents brought in the child, Jesus, to perform for him what was customary under the law.

Simeon took him up in his arms and praised God and said, Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised, for my eyes have seen your salvation.

You have prepared it in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory to your people Israel.

His father and mother, and Mary and Joseph, they were amazed at what was being said about him.

Then Simeon blessed them and told his mother, Mary, Indeed, this child is destined because of the fall and the rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed.

A sword will pierce your own soul, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

So Simeon.

Simeon, we're told he's a man, he's devout.

Three times we see the Spirit of God.

You see in verse um uh well it says he's devout.

In verse 25, it says, looking forward to Israel's consolation, the Holy Spirit was upon him.

Then it says in verse 26, he had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he saw the Lord's Messiah.

And in 27, he was guided by the Spirit.

So let's just riff on this for a second.

Let's just think about the Holy Spirit.

Because, man, when you talk about the world of Christianity, there's all kinds of ideas about the Holy Spirit.

But the Bible gives us some pretty clear instructions.

And the model that we have here in the text of what the Holy Spirit is doing is really important.

So the Holy Spirit in the text here is speaking about Jesus.

And the Holy Spirit doesn't stop speaking about Jesus.

Well, I'm going to show you some scriptures in just a second.

Well, the Holy Spirit is revealing to him, promising you're not going to die until you see the Lord's Messiah.

And he's led by the Spirit up to the temple at the time that Jesus is there.

And then he sings this prophetic song.

It's like this combination of Isaiah 42 and Psalm 119.

I mean, Simeon, he's a guy saturated in God's word.

He's he's done, you know, what many of us are trying to do.

He's read through the Bible for a year, uh, you know, in a year, but many times over, he knows the word of God and he recognizes some key things about Jesus, which we're going to get to in just a second.

What I want to do is just for a second is talk about just the role of the Holy Spirit.

Again, there are many abuses of the Holy Spirit where people seem to be living for a relationship with the Holy Spirit and not living for a relationship with Jesus.

The Holy Spirit pro has a very important role in our life to point us to Jesus.

And I want to show you some of those scriptures.

First of all, in John 14, over in John 14, so if you go to John 13, 14, 15, and 16, Jesus is just talking about the Holy Spirit coming.

But I'm going to show you, because we have a shorter amount of time, we're just going to look at a few of the things that Jesus taught his disciples about the Holy Spirit.

And this is, we're going to repeat this at the end, okay?

But it's important to understand that John, which we're going to look at now.

We're in Luke, but we're going to go over to John.

John, his teaching, um, the way that he lays it out is he he lays out the father in son relationship.

He talks, he he quotes many of the teachings that Jesus gave about Jesus saying, I am in the Father, the Father is in me, I obey the Father, right?

So that's laid out.

Then Jesus does a whole nother set of teaching about the son in the world and how the son relates to the world, that he's the light of the world, that he is the door, that he's the bread.

So the sun in the world relationship is really well explained, right?

Jesus exemplifies some key relationships before he talks about the spirit in saint relationship.

Right?

The spirit in saint relationship starts to get explained in John 14, 15, and 16, but it's already been modeled by Jesus up to that point.

John 6, which we'll close out the night with, just explains how Jesus relates to the Father.

And it's key, it's fundamental for us as we understand how to relate to the Holy Spirit.

So John 14, 26.

John 14, 26 says this.

But the counselor, other verses say the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

Right?

So the Holy Spirit is going to be sent by the Father to the disciples to remind the disciples about what Jesus had taught.

Now, same kind of numbers, but go over chapter 15, 1526.

Again, Jesus is this is all the teaching the night before Jesus was killed, right?

Olivet discourse.

Um so he's in the last, if this is the Olivet discourse, he's in the last 50 days on earth.

So he's preparing them to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

1526 says this when the counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

You also will testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

So here in verse 26, as Jesus is teaching the disciples about the Holy Spirit, he's saying, I'm gonna send him to you, and then the Holy Spirit's good work in you is that he's gonna point it in me.

Right?

So the Holy Spirit doesn't come to give us E BGBs, he doesn't come to uh make a thrill blow up our spines, the Holy Spirit comes and is given to us to point us to Jesus.

So when the Holy Spirit is at work in Acts, because Jesus is gone in the book of Acts, right?

Jesus is gone, the Holy, and Jesus says, don't leave Jerusalem until you have the Holy Spirit, right?

Then ten days later they get the Holy Spirit.

What does the ministry of the disciples look like?

Are they having Holy Spirit parties?

They're having Holy Spirit empowering to point to Jesus, right?

So as they preach, it says that Peter stood up filled with the Holy Spirit, he preached about Jesus, right?

So the Holy Spirit has a particular role in the Trinity to point to Jesus, right?

So John 14, 15, look at Romans.

Look at Romans chapter 8, and what Paul says about the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We're gonna look at two of Paul's teachings on the Holy Spirit that kind of mirror each other, one from Romans and one from Galatians.

So Romans chapter 8, verse 15.

Romans 8:15

You guys there?

You found it?

Romans 8, 15.

It says, You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.

Instead, you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Ah the Father.

Look at verse 16.

The Spirit Himself testifies together with our Spirit that we are God's children.

And if God's children, then we are also heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.

So God gives us his spirit, and his spirit is at work in us, testifying to our identity in Christ.

Right?

The Holy Spirit is connected or in relationship with our spirit.

We're spiritually dead before we come to Christ.

Our spirit comes alive once we are saved, and we relate to God by that by uh the Spirit of God.

So turn over to Galatians, same thing.

So much of the material in Romans is mirrored in Galatians.

So Galatians chapter 4, Galatians 4.

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

I've got you guys turning all over.

All over.

This is the last one over a couple minutes.

So Galatians chapter 4, verse 6.

Galatians 4:6

It says this.

Oh, in Ephesians, that's not gonna work.

Let's try it.

Galatians chapter 4, verse 6.

Galatians 4:6

And because you are sons, God sent the spirit.

What's the spirit of?

It's the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Ah the Father.

So you're no longer slaves, but a son.

And if a son, then God has made you an heir.

So similar concept as Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And here's the thing: what God wants to do by his spirit is give us his spirit so that we can relate to God.

Our relationship with God, like who's the vine and who's the branches, right?

The father is the vine, right?

We're the branches, we're grafted into um grafted into the vine, which is Christ, not the father.

And um the spirit animates that relationship.

So when we look at Simeon, a man who is devout, meaning that he's very religious, and then we see three times that the Holy Spirit is at work in his life.

If you are a devout person and the Holy Spirit is at work in your life, that means that there's a pointing to Jesus, right?

There's a work of the Spirit pointing to Jesus in your life.

God is helping you know the Father and the Son by placing his Spirit in Inside of you.

Now, the other work of the Holy Spirit in us is to empower us to do the mission of the church.

So if we when we go through Acts, one of the things we're going to see is that the Spirit is giving supernatural ability to mere mortals, normal human beings, to do things that they couldn't do before.

So to preach with clarity and to talk about Jesus, to be bolder than they should have been bold, to be more generous than they should have been generous.

To be able to care for the Grecian widows and to organize that relief effort.

To be able to preach the gospel in the face of persecution.

All of those things were because the Holy Spirit was enabling them to do it.

So in our day and age, sometimes there are abuses of the Spirit, where the Holy Spirit is kind of, it said, Well, this is the Holy Spirit doing this work, but it's it really doesn't line up with what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit.

So a good test of like what's from God, what's from the God, the Spirit of God, and what's not is it glorifying Jesus and is it helping the church uh accomplish its mission?

Right?

Um, I don't care about whether you've got goosebumps or you have this throw up your spine.

Nor is God really a whole lot.

Sometimes you don't have that.

Sometimes the emotions aren't there, but the Holy Spirit is helping you, helping Jesus be glorified and helping you accomplish the mission of the church.

So um we begin the this idea is teased out in the life of Simeon, right?

The Holy Spirit is working in a religious man what is pointing at Jesus.

Now, what does Simeon say?

Very quickly, let's just look at this really, really fast.

In verse 29, now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you've promised, for my eyes have seen your salvation.

You've prepared it in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory to your people Israel.

The language here is like the language of a watchman that's looking for a sign.

And so Simeon at some point in his life has been promised that he's not gonna die until he sees the Messiah.

And he sees that moment.

And so he says, I see the salvation that you've prepared.

God's redeeming work.

He looked at this baby, and he knows by the Spirit of God that this baby represents the salvation, the rescue, the deliverance of humanity from their sin.

It's a beautiful passage.

Love it, love the reference to the light.

Um, if you want to go and kind of dig into this more, read through Isaiah 42.

This is the language of Isaiah 42.

The thousand, you know, not thousands, uh, eight hundred years?

I gotta go back and check my history, but years and years before Jesus came, Isaiah's prophesying, saying that this Messiah is coming, the servant is coming, the light who's gonna light the world, the one who's gonna deliver people from their chains.

He's coming into the world.

And here's Simeon using that same language, saying, My eyes have seen the salvation of God that you have prepared.

God wants to save us, he saves us ultimately through his son, saves us from damnation.

We all deserve hell, right?

And Jesus has rescued us from hell.

But God is the God who doesn't just save ultimately, but he saves from faith to faith.

In Romans it says that we live out by faith to faith.

God allows us as humans, once we are believers, to still face difficulty.

Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians.

He says that it is a part of God's plan that difficult things will come up.

God allows, likes to take us and allow us to be buried through our circumstances.

You say, that's cool.

Why would he do that?

Why would he let us be buried through our circumstances?

Well, there's a very good reason.

Because he wants to put on display through our life the power of God, the resurrection power of Jesus.

So he allows us to face very difficult circumstances.

Sometimes it's the devil, right?

Sometimes it's consequences for our own sin.

Sometimes it's hard to know like when one of those things starts and one of them stops.

But God allows us to face difficult things on purpose.

It says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, so that the life of Christ may be seen in your body, right?

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

That while the dying, we die the death of the Lord Jesus, we may live out the life of Christ.

So here Simeon looks at this baby on the eighth day on his dedication, baby Jesus, and says, The salvation of God.

My eyes have seen the salvation of God.

I mean, so so Simeon died before he probably died.

I mean, there's no record, but he seems to be very old.

He seems ready to die.

So was I got a question for you.

Didn't plan on asking this, but a little trivia for you.

He died before the death and resurrection of Christ.

Was he saved?

Did he go to heaven?

Did Simeon go to heaven?

He did.

He's what we call an Old Testament saint.

He's saved by placing his faith in God's future work, right?

We're saved by looking back at Jesus and saying, God save me through your son Jesus Christ.

That's our salvation.

But Simeon is looking at that same person, the same object of our faith, but he's looking at this is going to be my salvation, right?

And so that is Simeon.

We'll see him in heaven, right?

That was going to be a fun conversation.

You pick out your questions, I'll pick out mine.

Okay, let's look at this next uh beautiful saint.

Um, Anna.

Anna, and remember, we're this is a hierarchical culture, doesn't value women, right?

But here, the writer of Luke, in that culture, is taking a testimony of a woman, a story of a woman, and putting it in scripture, right?

So scripture takes, it doesn't care about cultural norms and the gender rules that culture gives us.

It says, no, they bear their humanity and they deserve to be in scripture.

Pretty awesome, huh?

It was broke, uh, yeah, amen.

Thank you.

Verse 36.

There was a prophetess, Anna, a daughter of Fenuel of the tribe of Asher.

She was well along in years, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and was a widow for 84 years.

Now I'm reading from the CE version.

Your NIV version may have it differently.

It's written in a difficult way to understand.

Was she like a virgin for seven years?

What happened for 84 years?

Basically, she's really old.

Okay, can we come to that conclusion?

I don't know much.

I don't know what else is.

She's she's like a Jesus-loving woman, and she's old.

Like what her marriage status was, it's not exactly clear.

Yes.

She did not leave the temple serving God night and day with fastings and prayers.

At that very moment, she came up and began to thank God and speak about him to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

So it's just like, again, here's Anna, uh, like the shepherds, like the wise men, just playing a small role.

But you'll notice it's like the spokes of a uh bicycle wheel.

They all point to Jesus, right?

So Anna comes on the scene and she points to Jesus.

Simeon comes on the scene and she points to Jesus.

This is the theological concept of the centrality of Christ.

That Jesus is the pinnacle, he's the center, he's what we're all about.

That's why, you know, as a church, when we gather, we want to be a church that that expresses our love for Jesus and proclaims his gospel.

So, Anna, um, she just has her Holy Spirit moment and she's speaking about him.

Everybody, you know, this is the temple.

So what we're talking about is kind of like a public square.

Um, what would this be equivalent to?

It would be like on a nice warm afternoon in Fell's Point, where there's that square, and there's people just walking around doing their stuff, but the that geographic space, it's dedicated to the purposes of God.

Now, because Mary is there and because she's technically ceremonially unclean for another 33 days, it's the court of the Gentiles where this is taking place.

Um, how the sacrifice is offered and passed off, we don't know, but it's taking place in a in a common space where she was allowed to be at, and where Anna was allowed to be at.

So it's like out in public, right?

I don't know how Luke found the story.

It's kind of fun to think of like as Luke's kind of gathering and putting together this account, he comes across Anna's story.

It's really cool.

Um, but basically, she's pointing to Jesus.

Alright, let's go into this next section, verse 39.

When they had completed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.

The boy grew up and became strong, filled with wisdom, and God's grace, God's grace was on him.

Now, you may have watched on the Discovery Channel something different, or maybe the history channel, like the life, the birth, the early years of Jesus.

Because if you read, there's there's a bunch of different um uh false gospels or other accounts of what Jesus' childhood looked like.

There's there's um, well, let me give you some of them.

There's the infancy gospel of Matthew, the gospel of Thomas the Israelite, the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, and the Proto-Gospel of James.

Each one of those gospels gives a fictitious account of Jesus' childhood.

One of the fables has Jesus learning to do miracles from Egyptian mission uh magicians when his family fled to Egypt to escape King Herod's wrath.

In another tale, familiar to the writers of the Quran, young Jesus is modeling clay birds by a stream.

Young Pharisees complain that he's violating the Sabbath with such work, whereupon Jesus claps his hands and brings the birds back to life.

So again, maybe you've seen this stuff on the History Channel or Discovery Channel.

They love to make like a big deal out of these weird, like closet accounts of Jesus' life.

But we have some clear instructions here.

Verse 39 and 40.

He grew up, um, he was he became strong, filled with wisdom, God's grace was on him.

We don't have a ton of more information than that.

Um, we do know this, that um we call these the hidden years at Nazareth.

Dr.

Luke reports that the lad developed physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually.

That's how we could kind of categorize this summary.

We do know that he didn't perform any other miracles until his public ministry began.

So in John 2, 1 through 11, it says that Jesus did not perform any miracles as a boy because turning water into wine at that wedding feast, that was his first miracle.

So he didn't clap and claybirds didn't become real birds.

None of that happened.

We know that he worked with Joseph in the carpenter shop, um, according to Matthew 13, 55 and Mark 6, 3.

Uh, he apparently ran the business after Joseph died.

Kind of that's a little bit of an assumption.

Joseph and Mary had other children during those years, so he had siblings, according to Matthew 13, 55 through 56, and John 7, 1 through 10.

So he had brothers and sisters, and he had a dad that worked.

Alright, so let's go on.

Verse 41.

Every year his parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover festival.

When he was 12 years old, they went up according to the custom of the festival.

After those days were over, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.

Assuming he was in the traveling party, they went a day's journey.

Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends.

When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.

And all those who heard him were astonished at his understanding and his uh and his answers.

When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us like this?

Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.

Verse 49.

He says, Why were you searching for me?

He asked, Didn't you know that it was necessary for me to be in my father's house?

But they did not understand what he said to them.

So they come up to the temple celebrating Passover.

This is what you're supposed to do if you're a good Jew, if you're gonna fulfill the law.

You know, it's a good thing Jesus is born the family that he is, because he's come to fulfill the law on our behalf, and here they're doing Passover.

And Mary and Joseph, you know, 12 years old, that's that's pretty old in this culture here.

They go on for a whole day and then they start looking for him.

He's not there.

Oh no, where's he at?

So it takes another day to get back to Jerusalem if you've traveled for a day, right?

So that's day one.

Then they search all over Israel for a full another day, and on the third day they find him.

Notice in the CE version what Mary says.

She says in verse 48, when his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us like this?

Why have you treated us like this?

You know, um, we say that to God a lot, right?

It's easy to say that to God as our life unfolds.

Right?

Maybe you feel like you're buried in the grave right now through a circumstance, and you need the resurrection power of God in your life.

And it's easy in that place to cry out like Mary and say, Why have you treated us like this?

Right?

So Mary is looking at the Son of God, saying to him as a 12-year-old, why are you treating us like this?

Right?

Been there, done that.

And yet the response that Jesus gives back to Mary is the response, the message for us.

Right?

Jesus puts the question back to her, why were you searching for me?

Why were you looking?

Why was this, why are you asking?

Why?

Basically.

Just kind of shutting her down.

And then he says, Didn't you know that it was necessary for me to be in my father's house?

Maybe your version says to be about my father's business.

God, and what we're gonna see over and over again throughout Luke is that God has a plan, right?

And God is doing the world according to his rules.

We live in a culture that values autonomy, self-expression, freedom, being a free person.

Um, but yet when we encounter the God of the Bible, we see a God that is just focused on his plan being unfolded.

Now, the cool thing is we get to be invited into his plan, and that his plan includes us.

Right?

So we're not on the sideline feeling isolated and ignored.

We get to join God in the work that he's doing.

But I got news for you.

If you're a human that's going to complain that God, why are you doing this?

Why are you treating me like this?

You're not doing life, how your my life, how I want it to be done, God's response back to you is, I'm not about your life, right?

I'm not about your plan.

I'm not about how about your agenda.

I'm about my business, my agenda, my plan.

Remember when we were looking at Philippians?

In the book of Philippians, Paul says, Hey, I'm forgetting the things that are behind.

I'm pressing forward for the things that are ahead.

This is at the end of Paul's life.

Paul's wrapping up life.

He's in under house arrest.

He's in a miserable state, yet he's talking about joy in a letter more than any other time.

He's talking about joy in any other letter in Philippians, right?

And he's saying there's more ahead.

I'm pressing forward.

I'm pressing on for what God has ahead of us.

And Jesus here responds back to Mary and he says, Didn't you know?

Didn't you know I had to be about my father's business?

In my father's house.

Here he is at 12 years old.

This is key to us.

It gives us this one insight that Jesus, as a human, understood from 12 years old that he was God and had this mission, right?

That he he had a father other than Joseph.

Trying to unpack the humanity of Jesus is difficult, you know.

Sometimes stabbing in the dark, but we we do know what we know in front of us, which is here that Jesus has this obligation, this higher priority.

Now you can look at this and you can say, well, there's a tension here.

Because in in one of the commands, I think the sixth command out of the ten is honor your father and mother.

This doesn't seem honoring Jesus.

What are you doing, Jesus?

You're not honoring your father and mother, right?

There's a higher ethic here, which is the father's business.

Got to be about the father's business.

And that is where we're gonna leave it tonight.

For each of us, we gotta be about the father's business.

There's warring ethics in our life.

There's all kinds of things pulling on our life.

There's other people that have agendas.

Like we got our own plan, the things that we dream about.

But oftentimes life does not unfold how we plan, but it does.

We still have pressures from other people who've got plans for us bosses, spouses, kids, friends, parents.

They've got their plan for us.

But here's the thing we can be like Jesus.

We're called to be like Jesus and to be about his plan.

Right?

To be about his work.

I told you we finish off in John 6, so let's turn over there.

John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

Jesus is explaining his relationship to the Father in John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

Okay, so we just saw 12-year-old Jesus.

I love this, the pairing of this.

You know, it's like it's just it's a it's a it's a beautiful like these how these texts work together.

So fast forward, you know, uh 21 years in Jesus' life, he's talking to the Pharisees, teaching the disciples.

6 30 35.

He says this, I'm the bread of life, Jesus told him.

No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.

Right?

Seriously, he knows who he is.

He's talking about himself.

But as I told you, you've seen me and yet you do not believe.

Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.

I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me.

This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose none of those he has given me, um, but should raise them up on the last day.

For this is the will of my father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

But do you see?

Um, going back up to verse 38, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of him that sent me.

21 years later, Jesus is doing his ministry, but he still is acknowledging his role is to do the will of the Father.

And what is that?

It's to take those that are given.

That's us.

He's his his work, Jesus' work that the Father's given to him, is to take us, as his sons, as his daughters, right?

It's awesome.

It's awesome.

So my prayer for us as as a church is that as we look at this beautiful relationship of the Son that he has with his father, and then this the son says, I'm gonna give you my spirit, that we would walk out our lives relating to the Father, relating to the Son by the Spirit given to us.

It's a trippy thing.

You know, sit, sit, you know, if you got a minute, you know, tomorrow night, tomorrow morning, or this evening, just sit for a second and think like there's me, there's my corporal, there's my body, there's who I am as a being, and then if I've given my life to Christ, there's the Spirit of God in me.

Right?

That that's not what they had in the Old Testament.

The Spirit would come upon them and leave, but the Spirit's been given to us, right?

God's Spirit is one, he lives within us.

His Spirit wants to relate to our spirit and reveal the Son.

So you ask Josh, Pastor Josh, how do we do life?

How do we do life now?

Hey, we do life now because we've got the Spirit testifying to the Son, leading us out into the things that we're to do.

Amen?

Let's pray.

I'll have Nick come back up.

Let's stand up.

Let's stand up, we'll stand up for worship unless unless you cannot stand.

That's fine.

But if you're capable of standing, we will stand and finish off with a couple more songs.

But let's pray.

God, we just um we are in love with Jesus.

Like we are we we owe everything to Jesus.

And so as we sing, like as we see, as Simeon is there and and he's looking on the salvation, like we look back at you, Jesus, and we set our affection upon you, and we say thank you, thank you, thank you for saving us, for rescuing us.

Oh, we need it.

We need it this week.

We're gonna need it.

Lord, be our redeemer.

Rescue us, lead us, guide us.

But we want to submit to the Father.

We want to be good children of God.

And so, by your spirit, we just look to you.

Let's worship.