The Priority After Christmas

We'll take your Bibles this morning and open to our text, Luke chapter 2.

! I'm going to read verses 41 through 52.! 41 through 52. 41 through to the end of the chapter. And so listen as I read God's Word.

His holy Word. Inspired Word. Inerrant Word. Starting with verse 41. His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.

And when He was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the Feast. When they had finished the days, as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem.

And Joseph and his mother did not know it. But supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances.

So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking Him. Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.

And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. So when they saw Him, they were amazed. His mother said to Him, Son, why have you done this to us?

Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously. And He said to them, why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business?

But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them. Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them. But His mother kept all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. This is an interesting portion of Scripture.

And I think you would agree with me if you've thought about it as you've read it before and as you've heard me read it. It's interesting, this little kind of excerpt here from the life of Jesus when He was a youth.

And it's interesting to me on a number of accounts. In fact, I might just point out a few points of interest. But one thing, this passage represents the only biblical record of Jesus when He was a youth.

Have you thought about that? The only thing. Only reference to it. Now, both Luke and Matthew, of course, give us information about His birth and about His infancy. And the Gospels, all the Gospels, give us and record numerous details about Jesus' three-year-long ministry when He was an adult in His early 30s.

But here in our text, this is the only example, the only excerpt, the only attempt, we might even say, by Bible author to fill in some of the 30-year gap between His birth and the beginning of His ministry.

And at that, we only have this one solitary event or incident when Jesus was 12 years old. Now, I think that's interesting.

Now, there are, you might be aware, there are a number of extra-biblical accounts of Jesus' childhood and teenage years. I say extra-biblical in the sense that they are outside the Bible and so not reliable.

But there are a number of them. For example, there is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. You may not be aware of it. It's one of the usually called apocryphal Gospels.

But in this case, really, it is what's technically called a pseudepigrapha Gospel. You say, what in the world is that? That means that the author is false.

And that's why it wasn't accepted by the early church. It was written in the second, maybe third century. And it opens with these words, rather interesting. I, Thomas the Israelite, make this report to all of you, my brothers among the Gentiles, that you may know the magnificent childhood activities of our Lord Jesus Christ.

All that He did after being born in our country. And there apparently was quite a craving, quite a desire to get bits of information about Jesus as a youth.

And so this writer, whoever he was, is providing that. One of the stories describes Jesus when He was just five years old.

And it seems that it was on the Sabbath. And He was playing there by the riverside or stream, the side of the stream. And He's making these small pools of water there in the sand beside the stream.

And then He's speaking and making the waters in each of these little pools pure. He's purified them just with His spoken Word. And then Jesus takes soft clay and fashions, as the story goes, fashions twelve sparrows.

And then He claps His hand and He says, be gone. And the sparrows come to life and they fly away. Interesting story. And it was evidently a very popular story in the day or later on or years after because it found its way somehow in the Koran.

Kind of interesting. The story concludes, though, with a more sinister note. A child, another child is coming by there and observing Jesus making these little pools and purifying the water.

And this child takes a stick and He destroys the pools that Jesus made. And so Jesus says to the child, He says, You will be barren and wither and immediately that happens.

The child just withers there and I suppose dies. Another child comes by and accidentally bumps into Jesus' shoulder and Jesus tells him that he will go no further and that child simply drops dead right there.

The story relates how some of the horrified neighbors warned Joseph and Mary that they would have to leave their village if Jesus did not stop killing their children.

I think we would probably get a committee together and say, Listen, you're going to have to move out of here if Jesus doesn't stop doing these things. And so Joseph, as the story goes, goes to his son, his five-year-old, and privately says to Jesus, he says, Stop doing these things.

He says, People are complaining, so you need to stop this. And Jesus declares that His accusers will be punished and immediately they all go blind.

Interesting. The Emphasy Gospel of Thomas also records a number of other healings and miracles supposedly, presumably, done by the Lord Jesus.

A child falls in from a roof and dies and Jesus raises him from the dead. Jesus heals a young man's foot from an injury incurred by an axe, accidental.

Jesus heals his brother James from a snake bite when he just breathes on the wound. And Jesus touches an infant who had died prematurely and the infant comes back to life.

And at years of age, Jesus sows a single grain of wheat and produces hundreds of bushels and then feeds the poor in His village.

And there are a number of other such accounts, similar accounts. In the Arabic infancy gospel written probably in the 6th century, there is this account, and I quote, One day when Jesus was running about and playing with some children, He passed by the workshop of a cloth dyer called Salem.

They had in the workshop many cloths which He had to dye. The Lord Jesus went into the dyer's shop, took all these cloths and put them in a cauldron full of indigo.

And when Salem came and saw that the cloths were spoiled, He began to cry aloud and ask the Lord Jesus, saying, What have you done to Me, Son of Mary? You have ruined My reputation in the eyes of all the people of the city, for everyone orders a suitable color for himself, but you have come and spoiled everything.

And the Lord Jesus replied, I will change for you the color of any cloth which you wish to be changed. And He immediately began to take the cloths out of the cauldron, and each of them dyed as the dyer wished until He had taken them all out.

And when the Jews saw this miracle, they wondered and they praised God. So you have these extra-biblical stories. And these are fanciful stories, some of them quite appalling, quite disturbing.

And they're all fictitious. They're all fictitious. And it seems that we have kind of this insatiable desire, kind of a craving to hear stories and read stories about this.

We want to know what Jesus was like as a child and as a youth and maybe even as a young adult before He started His ministry. And so we can imagine, maybe, that some of these stories are true.

But all we have is this one account in Scripture, in Luke, that we can know is true. Just this one account in Luke chapter 2, Jesus lingers in the temple and listens and talks to the theologians.

That's it. Wow. What an incredible story. Real exciting, huh? Is this all we have? Yes, that's all there is. Pretty mundane, would you say?

Next to these ancient apocryphal stories and fanciful stories. Pretty mundane. But now listen, here is yet another testimony to the inspiration of the Word of God.

If the Bible were merely a man-produced book, then we would have in it, I think, many of these same stories that I've just related to you out of these apocryphal writings.

We would have some of these kind of stories and maybe even more. But Luke, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is not trying to satisfy our cravings about Jesus' life before His ministry.

That's not His intent. That's not the Bible's intent. He is teaching us something about Jesus that is both theological and practical.

Both theological and practical. As Charles Simeon, a great preacher many years ago and commentator, Bible commentator, he said this, he said, there is little here in this story to gratify our curiosity, but much to regulate our conduct.

That's what we ought to get from this passage. Now there are a few other points of interest that I might mention to you. Also, there is in this text the very first recorded words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have accounts of Him as an infant, but He wasn't speaking then. And so this represents the only recorded words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we'll get to those words in verse 49 in just a moment. Also, I would give you this point of interest. In this text, we have the last direct, explicit reference to Joseph in connection with Jesus' early life.

The last connection, the last reference, the last mention of Joseph. Now we do have in John chapter 6 and verse 42, some mention of Joseph, but kind of in passing and not in any kind of direct sense.

And it has led some theologians to speculate that Joseph was dead, maybe. That he had died early in Jesus' life. At the very least, that he had passed away before Jesus' earthly ministry began.

We don't really know. This is the last mention of it. And I would also add this other point of interest and perhaps the most intriguing point of interest to the story. And that is on the face of it.

Now listen, think about this, and perhaps you've thought about this. On the face of it, the story, at least in the minds of Mary and Joseph, Jesus' actions appear to be wrong.

Have you ever come away from the story thinking that? In the minds of Mary and Joseph, clearly, his actions were wrong. It may be in the minds of readers since. Jesus' actions, what he did there, seemed obedient.

Seemed, may we say, even sinful. Now, Mary said in verse 48, Son, why have you done this to us?

Pretty clear. She said, look, look, son. We might kind of add some emphasis to it. I don't know if it was really there, but we can kind of imagine. I mean, if you were there, you were his mom, you were his dad, you'd travel all that way, and suddenly Jesus is not there with you.

He's only 12 years old. You'd be frantic. You might be saying something similar. Look, son, your father and I have sought after you anxiously.

I tell you, this is obviously a parental rebuke. There's no way around that. Her words seem to imply an assumption that what Jesus did was wrong.

Even, again, may I say, sinful. What are we to make of that? Well, we'll get to that in the course of things, okay?

Now, turning to the text, my approach in dealing with this text will be twofold. Twofold. First of all, the theological intent of the text.

That's what we need to look at first. The theological intent of the text. That is, what this text reveals about Jesus.

The person of Jesus. Second, the practical intent. We might even say the applicable intent of the text.

What this text teaches about the Christian life. Both things are in play here in the text. We need to see both things. The theological and the practical.

And I would say to you, and this applies not just to this text, but really everything in the Bible, the theological always leads to the practical. Because that's why the theological is so important.

That's why theology is something we need to learn. The theological always leads to the practical. You see, when you discover who Jesus is, then you will discover that imitating Him is the only viable approach to authentic Christian living.

That's what we need to get from this text. The theological and the practical. To discover who Jesus is in His person, then we will discover that imitating His life, His example, following His example, is the only right approach to Christian living.

To genuine Christian living. Now then, first let's discover what the text reveals about Jesus. Who He really is. That is, by the way, what Jesus wanted to accomplish in His mother Mary and Joseph.

To teach them something about Himself. Something that they should have already known, or at least partly known. He's wanting to teach Mary and Joseph about who their son really is.

This is the theological. And that explains why God, I believe, God the Father, orchestrated this entire event in the life of His Son and also why He inspired Luke to include it in His Gospel writing.

He's the only one who did. And I think probably because He was the one who interviewed Mary and Mary related this incident to Him. But it's all orchestrated by God. All inspired by God.

To teach them a very important truth about who their son really is. Now you might be thinking, didn't Mary and Joseph, and especially Mary, already know that?

Did they not already know who their son was? Wouldn't they have, shouldn't they have, known by now that their son was the Christ, the Messiah, the very Son of God?

Well, they certainly had been told about it. Right? We've already studied those passages in the early part of Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 1 and Luke chapter 2.

They've been told about their son and who his true identity was. But listen to your people, being told something and knowing something are often two different things.

Knowing and understanding. that's different than being told something or hearing about something. Matthew chapter 1 verse 23 tells us that the archangel Gabriel told Joseph that his son Jesus would be the fulfillment of Isaiah's messianic prophecy.

Remember what he said? Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means what? God with us.

That's what the angel Gabriel told Matthew. Gabriel expanded upon that in his visitation with Mary. He said, You will conceive and bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest. That's what Gabriel said to Mary. He will be called the Son of the Highest. That is a clear, clear declaration that Jesus is the Messiah.

Now, both Joseph and Mary were together in the temple that day. Remember, we studied this just a couple of weeks ago. And they were there together in the temple when Simeon, old Simeon, came and he prayed his psalm, in a sense.

He said to God, he said, My eyes have seen your salvation. A clear declaration of the person of Christ.

the Christhood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Messiah. Simeon is saying to Mary and Joseph very clearly, this is him, the one I'm holding here, your child, named Jesus.

This is him. This is the Messiah. This is the one we've been looking for and waiting for. This is the one that has been foretold of throughout the Old Testament. He is here now.

And so, how could it be any clearer than that to Mary and to Joseph? And yet, in our text, Jesus made a direct statement about His true identity here in verse 49.

This is a clear statement about His identity. You might read it and miss it, but it's a very clear statement. He said, Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?

Capital F. Fathers. My Father's business. A direct reference to the eternal Sonship of Jesus. A clear declaration of His deity.

And the Bible says they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them. They didn't understand it. You say, How could that be? They didn't understand what He meant.

Not fully. You see, here, they were still putting it all together in their minds. Don't look back on Mary and Joseph and try to make any kind of assumption about what they should have known based upon what you know.

They didn't understand it. They were still putting the pieces of the puzzle together and they were doing so without a completed picture to go by. Let me give you an illustration.

Imagine someone handing you a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and saying, Put this together. And so, you being a puzzle lover, right? You are, aren't you? And you open up the box and you dump all the contents, all the pieces out on the table and you take the time to turn all those pieces face up or picture up and you've got them all laid out there and you grab the box and you look at it and to your amazement there's no picture on it.

Can you imagine trying to put a puzzle together like that? No picture. Can you imagine how that would complicate, make it more difficult to put that piece, that puzzle together?

together. You have no idea whatsoever what the puzzle is supposed to look like when it's completed. Now, you might pick up a piece and maybe another piece of similar color and start trying to fit them together and maybe you have two or three, you know, amazingly, have two or three pieces put together but you're looking at it and I don't even know what this is exactly.

How do you go from there? How difficult that would be? Now, add to that or take that a step further and imagine someone has a puzzle in the box and he opens it up and he says, now grab six pieces of the puzzle and you figure out how they fit into the picture and as soon as you can figure out how they fit in, then you can grab six more pieces and continue to do that until the puzzle is completed.

Can you imagine doing that with a puzzle? Now, that somewhat illustrates what is going on here with Mary and Joseph? You might be thinking they have plenty of information but they only have pieces of it.

In fact, notice what verse 51 says as we get near the close of the text. The Bible says, then he, that's Jesus, went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them.

But notice what comes next. But his mother kept all these things in her heart. Now, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? We've already seen something very much like that.

In fact, it's earlier in the chapter in verse 19, we have a similar thing said. And it occurs after all the events surrounding the birth of Jesus, the visitation by the angel Gabriel, the revelation from Elizabeth concerning Mary's child, the stable, the manger, the visitation by the shepherds, and the testimony of what they heard and they saw there.

And we could also add in what Matthew included, the star, the wise men, all of that has occurred. And after all of that, Luke records in chapter 2 verse 19, but Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Same idea. Same thing happening. Literally, we could take that phrase and expand upon that and bring out the full meaning of it and this is what it would mean.

This is what it describes. Mary, after all these things have taken place, all the things she has seen, all that she has heard, Mary is carefully storing, tucking away, we can even use the word treasuring these things, in her mind, and in her mind she was continually fitting them together.

Piecing them together, if you will, to try to understand the full sense of it all. That's quite a statement, quite a sentence, but that explains what this means.

Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. She's fitting it all together, trying to make sense of it all. Like putting a puzzle together when you don't have all the pieces at one time.

Like putting a puzzle together and you don't even have the completed picture to go by, to guide you. And that is why Jesus lingered at the temple. He wasn't being disobedient.

Jesus was not sinning. Jesus was not being careless and uncaring for his mother and his father. Jesus lingered at the temple.

That's why he did this. And why Luke included that event in his gospel account because Mary needed to know something. Joseph needed to know.

Theophilus, the man that Luke is writing to, he needed to know and all readers since that time have needed to know and still need to know today that there is more, much more than meets the eye when it comes to Jesus.

Much more here that this young man of twelve is God incarnate. He is fully God and he is fully man. Now notice how this is revealed.

Let me just walk through the text. Starting again there in verse 41. Now follow along. His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. That's something they just did every year.

I'm sure Jesus had attended with them many times before. And when he was twelve years old, by the end of the year by the way of this twelfth year, he would become bar mitzvah, a son of commandment.

And so on this twelve year, they went up to Jerusalem, according to the custom of the feast. And when they had finished the days, as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem.

Unthinkable, but that's what he did. And Joseph and his mother did not know it. That's even more unthinkable. They wouldn't know it. We could talk about how that could happen. We're not told how this could have happened.

But it did, and so he's missing. They have traveled a whole day out of Jerusalem. But supposing him to be, have been in the company, they went a day's journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances.

And so when they did not find him, they were frantic. Now it doesn't say that here in the text. We understand that later. But when they did not find him, what did they do? Well, the only smart thing, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him.

Now, so it was that after three days, they found him, where? In the temple. Now, by the way, that might mean three days of searching in Jerusalem after they got back there, meaning a total of six days that their son was missing.

Or it could simply mean the third day. So one day out, one day back, one day of searching, and they find him, which is probably the sense of it.

Alright? But still, three days. And they didn't know where their son was. But at the end of the third day, or the sixth day, whichever you wish, they found him, where? Sitting in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.

Now, follow this. verse 48. So when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, Son, why have you done this to us?

Look, your father... Now, note that. Your father and I have sought you anxiously. Now, notice what Jesus says.

Jesus said to them, why did you seek me? Implication being, you should have known exactly where I was.

That's what he meant. And the further implication being, they must have looked a number of other places before they finally looked at the temple. people, they didn't know he would be there.

And here is the gentle rebuke from Jesus. Did you not know that I must be about my father's business?

Some translations have it in my father's house. house. Okay, you're wondering about that. But the point is this.

Whether it was house or business, the point is, whose house? Whose business? That's what we need to see. His father's house.

His father's business. Do you understand? Do you see the correction that Jesus is making in his mother's understanding?

And Joseph's understanding? She said, your father, meaning Joseph, and I have been searching for you in anguish.

And Jesus said, you should have known that I would be in the house of my father. Meaning, God the father.

And so far from this being an example of a disobedient teenager, teenager, or almost teenager. Far from this being an example that the critics might point to and say, here, Jesus was not perfect, He was not sinless.

Far from that being the case. Rather, Jesus chose this moment in His life, 12 years old, to reveal to His parents in a very unforgettable way.

Absolutely unforgettable way. Mary never forgot this. To reveal to His parents in an unforgettable way that He knows who His real Father is.

And therefore, He knows what that means concerning His true identity. And Mary needed to know that. And Joseph needed to know that. And not only that, but He revealed what it means for His future.

His Father's house. His Father's business. This is a huge piece of the puzzle, you see, that Luke's Gospel represents.

It's the completed picture. And this is a huge piece of it. The Gospel puzzle. And it is a crucial piece of the puzzle for Mary and Joseph, for Theophilus, whoever that guy was, and for all those who have read this Gospel since.

And the piece of the puzzle is simply this. Jesus is fully God and fully man at the same time. And this is what He's teaching His parents. And us.

That's only one piece of the puzzle, isn't it? One piece of the Gospel puzzle. And when Luke pens the final verse of his final chapter, then the puzzle will be completed.

Now, that is the theological intent of the text. We've got to get that first. Otherwise, we come away thinking, well, I just don't understand this. How could Jesus do such a thing to His mom and dad?

We've got to get the theological intent of the text. What it reveals about Jesus. He is fully God and fully man.

He is God incarnate. And then, we look at the practical intent. What about the practical intent? What it teaches us about the Christian life?

Well, we can make this statement. if Jesus is fully God and fully man, and He is, then what?

Then His life, even as a twelve-year-old, serves as a perfect example for us to follow. You say, we're to disobey our parents as well?

No. You're missing it. Jesus exemplifies something here, even as a twelve-year-old. Something we need to imitate. Something we need to follow.

And that's why I've entitled my sermon, The Priority After Christmas. Jesus is now born. He's been born. He's been dedicated in the temple, according to the law.

He has reached His final year before becoming Bar Mitzvah, Son of Commandment, and He has fully embraced and committed Himself to the Father's purpose in His life.

And for us, Christmas is now over. The decorations are put away. We finally got all that done yesterday. And our thoughts now are moving away from the birth of Jesus and hopefully to the life of Jesus.

And it's a new year, a new beginning, a renewed opportunity for us to embrace and commit ourselves to the Father's purpose for our lives and for our church.

And so this 12-year-old child, Jesus, exemplifies our priorities. Three priorities.

So quickly, what are they? You ought to get these down. priority one, be God's faithful student.

These are not complicated. If you look at the text and think about it a while, they'll pop out at you. Here's priority number one. This was Jesus' priority, our priority. Be God's faithful student.

Priority number two, be God's faithful servant. And priority number three, be God's faithful subject. subject. There are the three priorities.

Now let me expand upon them. Number one, be God's faithful student. Now folks, listen, Jesus is fully God.

Right? He's just declared that. It's already been declared of Him. And now, in just a sentence, He has declared that to His mom and dad and to all of us. Jesus is fully God.

No doubt about it. And yet, He was a student of God's Word. Can you explain that? Well, I could give you some theological explanations of that, but I don't think we need to take time to do that this morning.

I think the point is, this is a premeditated, deliberate example for all of us that Jesus is giving us.

That He was a faithful student of God's Word. Should then we be any less than that? Well, the answer to that is no. We should be that as well.

Now, notice in verse 46, Mary and Joseph found Jesus where? In the temple. And what was He doing? He was there in the temple sitting in the midst of the teachers is how it's translated in the New King James.

It's didaskalos. It's the Greek. And in this context, it refers to biblical theologians, Bible theologians, professors. He's sitting in the midst of the Bible professors.

Doctors. Doctors of philosophy. And there He is sitting there. And what does it say about Him? Look at it. Close. Verse 46. It's both listening to them.

Do you see that? Listening to them. Asking them questions. And verse 47. And all who heard Him were astonished at His what?

Understanding and answers. Now, I'm really making a point to emphasize these words because this is how we're going to understand Jesus' priority.

And therefore, what our priority ought to be as believers and followers of Christ. Imitators of Christ. When His parents asked Him why He was there in the temple, in effect, in essence, Jesus said, this is exactly where I should be.

And exactly what I should be doing. That's what He said to them, really. See, to be a faithful student of God's Word was His priority.

And we can learn a lesson here about this priority. Look closely. Now, I've emphasized some words. Now, I want to expand a little bit upon them.

Look closely at verses 46 and 47. Are you looking? five, there are five deliberate actions Jesus took that describe His priority as a faithful student of God's Word.

The first one is implied. Alright, so don't be looking for the word seeking there. It's not there, but that's priority. That's number one. Seeking.

In fact, let me give you all five of them. They're very clear. Seeking, listening, asking, understanding, answering. Five deliberate actions Jesus took in regard to His being a student of God's Word.

Seeking. Now, I said that's implied because it's not in the text, but it's easily implied because that's what brought Him to the temple. He was seeking. Seeking. Seeking to be a student of God's Word.

Jesus sought out the Bible teachers of His day. Jesus did not have a copy of the Bible in His hip pocket. Nor did His family have a family Bible at home.

They didn't have Bibles in this sense. They had scrolls and they were very expensive. And most people didn't have a copy of it. Jesus had been taught the Word, but it had been all verbal and He had memorized possibly all of the Old Testament by now or very close to it.

And so He sought out teaching. Now, we don't have to do that necessarily, though it's a good thing for us to do. That's why I hope you're here today. To listen to the exposition and application of God's Word.

And this is what Jesus is doing. He's seeking out God's Word and those who would teach Him. Second, listening. He's listening to it.

His ears are open. He's taking it all in. A lot of people who come to church and their ears are not open to hear God's Word preached or taught. There's some of you right now, your ears are open, but you're thinking about something else.

Ah, I caught some of you, didn't I? See the look on your faces. Huh? We're all like that. We're naturally like that. But we need to be very deliberate as Jesus was very deliberate.

He sought out the Bible teachers of His day because He wanted to be a student of God's Word as we all ought to want to be. And then He listened. All ears are open to take it all in.

And then asking. That's the third action. Very deliberate asking. He asked questions. That's a good way to learn.

Ask questions. And a combination of two. Listening and asking and listening. There was an open dialogue and open conversation. He was listening and asking and listening and asking.

And then fourth is understanding. That is, Jesus was not just a listener. He was a learner. Again, I know He's God and fully God and God's not learning anything.

He was an example to us. And in His humanity, He was a learner. And we ought to follow that example. To be a learner, a listener, and an understanding. Someone who wants to understand and does begin to understand.

And then, five, the fifth one, answering. And really, this is so key to being a faithful student of God's Word. answering.

In 1 Peter 3, verse 15, Peter wrote, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always being ready to make a defense or to give a biblical answer to everyone who asks you to give an account of the hope that is within you.

Always able. Can you answer? Those who object, those who ask you questions, those who wonder about your faith, are you able to give an answer? That's what it means to be a faithful student of God's Word.

2 Timothy 2, 15, be diligent. Diligence as a serious student, Paul's talking about. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.

Student of God's Word. That's priority number one. Priority number two, be God's faithful servant. Be God's faithful servant. Look at verse 49.

And He said to them, to Mary and Joseph, His mother and earthly father, He said to them, Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be, that's what you ought to see, I must be about, my Father's business?

Now actually, the word business is not in the text. You say, Aha! I know, because in my Bible it says house. Well, that word's not in the text either. Neither word is there.

It's implied in the understanding of the text. We could just as easily and very correctly translate it, I must be about my Father's things. The things pertaining to my Father.

God the Father. His house, His business, but the idea is His divine purposes. That's what we need to see. This is what Jesus is saying. I must be about my Father's divine purposes and specifically those He has called me to.

This was His priority. You see. To be a faithful servant of the Father's purposes and to do so no matter the cost.

To Himself, but even to others and even to His beloved mother. Let me show you something interesting. Mary said in verse 48, Son, why have you done this to us?

Look, your Father and I have sought you anxiously. Anxiously. Adunao is the Greek word. We have it translated anxiously.

King James, I think, has the word sorrow there. But, the meaning of the word Adunao is to cause intense pain.

Anguish. To cause torment. That's what the word means. That's what Mary was saying. That's a bit softened in the English, but that's what she said.

What was it that Simeon said to Mary earlier in this chapter? What he said to her concerning her future as the mother of Jesus, he said, a sword will pierce through your own soul also.

And here's the first opportunity for it. You see, this is not a priority without a cost. It's a priority to be a faithful servant of God.

It comes with a cost. It carries a cost. Cost to personal fame, fortune, friends, even family. And not only cost of them, but the cost to them.

As it was with Mary. One last priority. God, be God's faithful subject. Be God's faithful student.

Be God's faithful servant of His purposes. Be God's faithful subject. Look at it. Verse 51. Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them.

I don't know about you, but that's pretty anticlimactic to this whole narration. I mean, one minute He is in Jerusalem, the famous, great, grand capital city of Israel.

And not only is He in Jerusalem, which must have been a great thing for this little, this young boy from Nazareth. He's there in Jerusalem. He's not only there, but He's also in the temple.

The grand, the glorious temple of the Lord. And He's there conversing with and wowing the PhDs of His day and the next minute where is He?

In Nazareth. Small town Israel. Living in the humble, poor home of His parents and working with His carpenter father.

Hmm. And here is the word Luke uses to identify Jesus' priority. Subject.

He was subject to them, to His parents. Now folks, quickly, here's the priority. In the mundane things of everyday life, which, by the way, makes up the most of our life.

Mundane things, everyday life, routine duties of life. In the laborious daily grind of life, the boring, the ho-hum of life, be God's faithful subject.

be God's faithful subject. For it was there in these things, the routine things of life, it was there that Jesus, the Bible says, increased in wisdom, He increased in stature, that is, He grew up physically healthy, and He also increased in favor with God and men.

There, in Nazareth, in the normal, mundane things of life.

That's the priority. Be God's faithful student, His faithful servant for the purpose He has called you to, and His faithful subject, even in the simple, mundane things of life.

That's where growth takes place. He has to to to the next time. He has to to his He has to He has his to to to to his He has to his his He has!

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