Growing in Wise Obedience (Luke 2:40-52)

Let's open in a word of prayer. Our heavenly father, we delight in your word and in your son,

Jesus Christ. We entrust ourselves to your spirit today as we search the scriptures for wisdom and truth about your son and his humanity.

May you grant us the ability to enjoy and understand what we read and hear and the ability to apply it to our lives practically that you might change us from the inside out.

Ask in the name of your blessed son, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, amen. Well, this week, we resume our series that we started last week.

We're entitling it Walk by the Spirit. And last week, I gave you some of the why reasons as to why we are spending the next three months focusing on the humanity of Jesus Christ.

We looked at 10 reasons that we should study the humanity of Jesus last week.

So when I think about the life of Jesus, I have questions. I have a lot of questions.

Maybe you have some of these same questions. I just wonder, what was it like for him to just levitate from village to village to village as he traveled?

How cool would that be to watch? I also just wonder, I mean, when

Jesus didn't like what was for dinner, could he just manufacture what he wanted to eat in his bedroom that night? Really didn't like what mom made, so I'm just gonna make my own food.

Or like maybe he was running spare pocket change. He's like, I'm just gonna go down to the local lake here and fish a little bit and get some extra coins to put in my pocket.

I mean, I really seriously wonder, did he have the capacity to change water into milk and juice, beer, anything he wanted?

Now, these are all very silly, stupid, crazy questions, but what do they have in common?

Well, they express for us an incorrect and erroneous view of how Jesus lived out his humanity as the

God man. He did not levitate as he walked or as he traveled. He walked and his feet got dirty and he got tired and fatigued just like you and I do.

And we have no evidence whatsoever that he ever had the capacity to change any food into anything else or create food or produce wine out of water until we get to his three -year adult ministry.

So what would it change if his life in no way resembled ours?

What would it change? And why is it so important for us that we see him as fully authentically a human being?

Now, the New Testament writers under the inspirational Holy Spirit repeatedly commend

Jesus' life to us as an example, as a pattern, as something that we should imitate and follow.

We read some of these passages last week and we're going to be spending extensive time digging into some of them in the next couple of weeks.

But just listen again, as I read a couple of these from last week. First Peter chapter two, verse 21 says, for to this you have been called since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.

Hebrews chapter four, verses 14 and 15 say, therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,

Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin.

Now, initially our response to passages like this can be, well, that's just not fair. How am

I a human being expected to imitate God? It's just, it's not possible.

He never sinned. So isn't God through the Holy Spirit and through the New Testament writers holding out a standard to me that's absolutely unattainable?

Like saying, look, why don't you do this? But you really can't.

As I stated last week, the mystery of how the infinite perfect God could be in the same person as a finite limited human man is deep and profound.

And it's one that we will strain as we try to comprehend both this morning and through the rest of this series.

But as we strain to comprehend it, this is what will help us gain the insight that we need to provide the fuel for our progress of sanctification.

In Jesus' humanity lies the perfect example of how a human being is to overcome his frailty to learn obedience by the word of God through the power of the spirit.

Now, I'm going to start this morning before we get in with two very important caveats, two very important reminders.

As we spend the next three months and specifically this morning, gazing deeply into the passages that talk about Jesus' humanity, we must never neglect his deity.

He is, as Luke 1 .35 tells us, the son of God, and he always was.

In fact, in Revelation 1 .8, Jesus says, I am the Alpha and the

Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. We should never take our eyes off of his deity, even as we gaze intently at his humanity.

I'm going to quote from a book that I'm going to recommend for you this morning. It's called God Shines Forth.

I read it recently. It's a book about evangelism, and I really do commend it to you as a book that helps you see how evangelism shines forth out of a love of God, God's love for you, principally poured out through his son.

But the authors, Daniel Hames and Michael Reeves, write, it would be a mistake to think that the foundation of the renewed humanity is simply attempting to copy

Jesus. That would very quickly turn us back in on ourselves in a kind of religious self -reliance, which would smell far more of Adam than of Christ.

No, Jesus' renewal of humanity was not to be a matter of setting a better example than Adam did.

Jesus did not come to give us the prototype of your best life to be replicated in 10 easy steps.

He came to redeem us as humanity. So I believe that the answer to the question that I posed earlier, how is it fair for the

New Testament writers and God to hold out the standard of Jesus as our example, lies in looking accurately at his humanity and the resources that he had to obey and comparing those to ours.

When we do this, instead of finding ourselves frustrated by the inability that we have to be like him in his godness, instead of being frustrated, we can be excited at the ability that we do have to be like him in his humanity.

So the title of today's lesson is Growing in Wise Obedience.

And we're going to look at two reasons why Jesus had to be authentically human so that we will learn to grow in dependent, spirit -filled obedience like him.

Last week, I covered 10 reasons, which is way more than I normally would do. So this week, I cut it back.

We're going to look at two reasons why Jesus had to be authentically human so that we will learn to grow like him in spirit -filled, dependent obedience.

I want you to open your Bibles up to Luke, the Gospel of Luke chapter one. We're going to be spending the most of our time this morning in chapter two, but we're going to briefly start here in verse 35 of Luke chapter one.

I gave this to you as a homework assignment last week. So all of you who read Luke one and two are way ahead of the curve.

All of you who weren't here last week, hopefully you're familiar enough with this section of scripture.

It's one we spend a lot of time in here in about two or three months, right? Jesus began his earthly life in ways that are both like and unlike us.

Let's focus on the unlike part first. He is unlike us in that by virtue of his birth, through the power of the

Holy Spirit, he is born without the stain of indwelling sin or a sin nature.

He is a fresh start for the human race. Look at Luke chapter one, verse 35.

It says, the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you.

And for that reason, the Holy child shall be called the son of God.

So we see at this point, the incarnation of the God man, the eternal son taking flesh and becoming a baby.

And here we hit the point where he becomes like us. That's where he's unlike us.

He's born without the stain of original sin, no sin nature to battle his days, but how is he like us?

Well, think about it. He's a baby with normal human parents and he's subject to the normal steady pace of growth, which to our eyes might seem tediously slow and unnecessary when we view it from the outside, looking in on Luke's gospel.

Jesus did not skip steps. He did not hit two X on the video replay of his life.

He didn't fast forward all the way to maturity, right? He did not have the Bible memorized as a toddler.

He could not do hundreds of pushups as a baby. He was 100 % fully dependent upon his parents to feed him, bathe him, teach him how to talk, walk, read, write.

So you can fast forward in Jesus' life to Matthew 13, verse 55 and Mark six, and you find the people around him who grew up with him going, wait a second, isn't this just Jesus, the carpenter's son?

I mean, he's a normal person. Why is he doing all these things? They saw him as no different than any one of them throughout the years of his growth.

So the question, why would God the Father confine his plan for the savior of the world, the

Messiah King, to a slow, clunky process whereby

Jesus would grow from this helpless, crying infant who needs his diaper changed to a bumbling, curious toddler, an active, rambunctious child, awkward, hormonal teenager, to an independent young adult, and finally, a capable, mature plan?

Why did God do it that way? He didn't have to, did he?

Well, I believe that the answer to this question lies in the passage we're going to be studying this morning. So I want you to turn over to Luke two, beginning in verse 40.

We're going to read all the way from Luke two, verse 40, all the way through the end of Luke's second chapter, verse 52, and there are several observations that we're going to make here.

So I want you to think with me and watch with me here as we read through this section. Luke two, verse 40 said, "'The child continued to grow and became strong, "'increasing in wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.'

"'Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year "'at the feast of the Passover. "'And when he became 12, they went up there "'according to the custom of the feast.

"'And as they were returning, "'after spending the full number of days, "'the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem.

"'But his parents were unaware of it, "'but supposed him to be in the caravan, "'and went a day's journey. "'And they began looking for him "'among their relatives and acquaintances.

"'When they did not find him, "'they returned to Jerusalem looking for him. "'And 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 amazed "'at his understanding and his answers. "'When they saw him, they were astonished.

"'And his mother said to him, "'Son, why have you treated us this way? "'Behold, your father and I "'have been anxiously looking for you.'

"'And he said to them, "'Why is it that you were looking for me? "'Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house?'

"'But they did not understand the statement "'which he had made to them. "'And he went down with them and came to Nazareth.

"'And he continued in subjection to them. "'And his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

"'And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature "'and in favor with God and men.'"

So just some observations, we go through that chapter, that section there. The Greek word that's translated child, it's a word that's used both of infants and immature children.

Oh, Jesus is a child who, look at verse 40, continued to grow and become strong.

This is not simply a reference to his physical growth, growing taller and stronger, but it's an all -encompassing way of saying he grew up physically, mentally, and emotionally just the same way as you and I do, as any normal human baby does.

The phrase become strong implies that there's a progression from weakness to strength.

Like I said, Jesus could not just do hundreds of pushups as a baby. What's the point here?

What is Luke telling us in this very abbreviated summary, one verse that summarizes a whole section of Jesus' life?

Well, he's making the point through the Holy Spirit that Jesus' childhood was normal. A normal process.

Now, one of the most fascinating comparisons that you can make in Luke is the comparison between his cousin

John and Jesus. So look back with me at Luke 180, the very last verse in the long first chapter of Luke, at the summary statement that Luke gives us about John, Jesus' cousin.

It says, and the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit. And he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

Now, look over at Luke 2 40 that we just read and see the similarity. The child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom and the grace of God was upon him.

For this next section here, I'm going to be drawing heavily on a book that I'm going to commend to you with a caveat,

The Presence and the Power by Gerald Hawthorne. Tremendous book, I would absolutely commend it except for the very last chapter.

It's a little charismatic, so just go ahead and rip that out of the last section of the book there. But I'm going to be quoting and paraphrasing from sections of this book here, but I want you to think with me about this comparison.

John and Jesus are born within the same year. They're growing up at the same time, two different spots, right?

Jesus lives up in the north in Nazareth. John lives somewhere south near Jerusalem. And in this, his humanity,

Jesus grew up in the same way as John did. Neither of them exercised omnipotence, omnipresence, but the differences in this description are significant.

Luke says of John, look back at verse 180, the child continued to grow and become strong in spirit.

Whereas of a Jesus in Luke 2 .40, he says the child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom and the grace of God was upon him.

So John absolutely grew mentally and physically and was strong in spirit.

But Luke adds for us that this phrase, growing strong, increasing in wisdom, or as the

LSB translates it, being filled with wisdom. Now this phrase being filled with wisdom is subordinate to the phrase become strong or becoming strong.

They're not two separate distinct experiences separated by a comma, right?

They're linked together. The phrase being filled with wisdom tells us how and with what

Jesus became strong. How and with what was

Jesus becoming strong? John was growing strong mentally, but Jesus was growing strong mentally by being filled with wisdom.

Now, I want you to look ahead at a verse we're gonna spend a little more time in later, at Luke 2 .52, the last verse there.

Luke summarizes the chapter and says, and Jesus kept increasing, that's the verb we're gonna look at, in wisdom and stature.

You see wisdom again, increasing in wisdom. These two verses form an inclusio around this section here.

There's wisdom on either end of it. And increasing here, this verb is a progressive, present tense participle, which describes a steady, continuous, uninterrupted action.

Remember, he's not skipping ahead. He's not fast forwarding to the finish line. It's this steady, slow, progressive change.

Jesus was becoming strong intellectually by being ever more and more filled with wisdom.

Now, the verb here, increasing, is also in the passive tense, which indicates that it's not an action that Jesus did, but rather one that was done to him.

He allowed it to occur in his life. Jesus was being filled by someone.

And Luke doesn't specify who, but we can draw the logical inference that it's the

Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Based on the reality that Spirit was present at the beginning, we saw that at Luke 1 .35

in his conception. And we know, if you go ahead in Luke 3 and 4, the beginning of Jesus' ministry at his baptism, the

Spirit comes upon him and then leads him out into the wilderness. And from that point forward, the

Spirit is absolutely 100 % fully present in all areas of his life.

No one does the miracle that he does without the filling of the Spirit. Jesus is being increasingly filled by wisdom from the

Spirit. Now, with what was the

Spirit filling him? Well, the easy answer is wisdom. And I wish I could spend more time here, so I'm just going to read this to you, and we're going to come back to these sections in future weeks.

But Isaiah has lots to tell us about how the Spirit had the capacity to fill

Jesus. Isaiah 11 .2 says, "'The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him.'"

The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the

Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Jesus is being filled by the

Spirit with wisdom, which is allowing him to grow a normal human growth, but more and more wisdom and knowledge and strength every single day.

Now, the next difference that we're going to note here in our comparison between John and Jesus is what happens to them.

John separates himself. Did you see that, Luke 1 .80? The child continued to grow and become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts.

Now, it's important for John, we'll come back to this in a future week as well, that he goes out into the wilderness where he's going to be called as a prophet, but Jesus does not separate himself from society.

Jesus continues to grow in the normal societal context of every other human boy around him.

I'm going to quote from Gerald Hawthorne again and say the Holy Spirit took advantage of every educational instrument that was thus readily available, home, parents, school, scriptures, life and worship of the synagogue and so on to mold the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of this developing personality.

The Holy Spirit used his parents, his school. His local synagogue rabbi.

His normal progression under his father as a carpenter. Everything that you and I have access to, to produce the same growth.

The final difference though is very profound. We look back at Luke 2 .40.

It says the child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom and the grace of God was upon him.

Now, this is really striking. It says that God the Father through the

Holy Spirit poured out his grace upon Jesus. Now, normally when

I think of grace, I think of something that is necessary to overcome sin. It's a necessity because of my sin.

I need the grace of God because I am a sinner. But contextually here,

Jesus doesn't need the grace of God because he's a sinner. Why does he need the grace of God?

He needs it to grow and to learn and to develop himself.

We don't like to think or even say that Jesus had needs.

But this is biblical, right? We know that he needed to eat. He was hungry. He needed to drink.

He needed to sleep. But he also needed grace, wisdom, maturity, and to be perfected in holy sinlessness.

And for this, I will turn you to Hebrews 2 .10. Flip over to the book of Hebrews 2.

Usually when you do this, your Bible will fall open to whatever section of Hebrews you were in when you arrived at KCC.

For my family, that's chapter 10. My family Bible reading, we are in Hebrews.

And when my kids flip there, they're like, I can't go to the first part of Hebrews. My Bible just falls open to the end.

Hebrews 2 .10 says, for it was fitting for him for whom are all things and through whom are all things and bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

So in what sense did Jesus need to be perfected? Wasn't he born perfect?

I believe that the sense here is something that we need to be very precise about.

This is an area where we have to be right on point in our definitions and our descriptions of Jesus and his two persons joined together in one, right?

Jesus is impeccable without sin in that as the

God man, he cannot sin or God cannot sin.

In addition, for Jesus to be the second Adam whose righteous life can be granted as an authentic gift to his children, his sinlessness cannot simply be based on his deity or his sinless conception in holiness.

It must be based on his free choice as a man to maintain that holiness by saying no to sin for his entire.

He had to hold fast to a steady, unswerving, undeviating set of his own will, always to do the will.

The Holy Spirit's work at his conception did not remove him from the stream of genuine humanity.

Jesus was holy without the stain of original sin, yes, but he was not yet perfected in holiness.

Do you see the difference there? He was holy, but he was not yet perfect in holiness.

Go ahead and turn all the way back to Luke 2. We're done in Hebrews there for now.

We'll be back in Hebrews a lot during this study. I'm going to quote for you once again from the book,

God Shines Forth. Every moment of Jesus' life on earth was a display of humanity as it was always supposed to be.

For the first time, a human being lived in the fullness of God's intentions for us.

He perfectly loved, trusted, and obeyed his father and poured out his heart to him in prayer.

Even though he faced all the same temptation, weakness, and suffering, we do.

Jesus was everything a human being is meant to be. The definitive likeness of God revealed in the original image himself here at last was a real man.

So there are some implications to this study of Luke 2, verse 40 through 52.

First implication I have for you is that Jesus' development as a human was impacted significantly by the input of his parents and teachers.

He could not have done it without them. In a human sense, he was dependent upon them to aid him in his growth.

Secondly, Jesus' spiritual growth occurred through the same process that we undergo, being taught about God through his word and the enablement of the spirit.

Jesus didn't have an inherent, innate knowledge of all of the things he would need to know to be an adult spiritually without having the word.

And the spirit coming alongside to give him that knowledge. He had to go to the

Old Testament and read it himself. He did not know it as a baby.

Now let's just pause and meditate on this very briefly. In this short little verse,

Luke 2, 40, God provides us so much valuable information about Jesus' humanity and how he was able to live a life that serves as our example.

We know from this verse, it is possible to grow in strength and wisdom.

It's possible. And we know the Holy Spirit is the source of strength and wisdom for Jesus.

We also know that God's grace is the instrument whereby Jesus received the ability to grow and increase in wisdom.

And lastly, don't miss this. These statements were true of Jesus and they're true for you and I too.

The first reason that Jesus had to be authentically human was that he had to grow in wisdom by the spirit.

The second reason is that he had to learn obedience by the spirit.

And for that, we're gonna continue on in Luke 2, verses 41 through 52. Now this brief episode goes by so fast in the biblical record.

And it gives us the only glimpse that we have of Jesus as an older child at the age of 12.

Now, one of the errors that we can make as we try to understand who

Jesus was as a human is thinking that it was just trivially easy for him to obey.

I mean, that was just so easy. It can make it really difficult for us to see the call for us to obey like him.

We can see that call is very hollow, unattainable. Yeah, I know

I should obey like him, but come on. He was God. You've heard your kids say that to you.

I know I have heard my kids say that to me. His obedience on the cross was not the first time in the son's experience that he did express his obedience to the father.

That's a quote from Bruce Ware who wrote this book, The Man Christ Jesus, which I know you've had commended to you before by multiple others, so I'll just add my voice to them.

But the point is that it's not that when you get to the end and he's obeying God the father, going to the cross, choosing to submit his will to the fathers, it's not the first time that he's obeying.

He had to learn obedience. And we see a piece of that here.

So just a little bit of background here as we look at Luke 2 41 and Jesus' visit to Jerusalem at Passover.

Remember that it's highly likely that this may have been one of Jesus' first trips to Jerusalem.

We don't know that for sure. He could have traveled there before, but this is a distance of about 65 miles.

So imagine walking from here to the Spokane Airport, about the same distance. And by extension, if it was one of his first visits, it's his first visit to the temple, the temple of God, the father, the one he knows is his father, the temple that he would eventually occupy during his passion week.

He would rule the temple as the Messiah. Now we know that Jewish adult males were required by law to go to at least three feasts yearly.

And according to Mishnaic Jewish regulations, 13 is the age that a man becomes a

Jewish male and was considered an adult and therefore required to make the journey. But we've discerned and read and studied that it is normal for Jewish males to make the trip at the age of 12 to become familiarized with the obligations of the feasts under the law.

So just imagine you're Jesus. Imagine your excitement, your anticipation that you're going to the temple.

You've been studying the law of God about Passover and you're coming to a full understanding through the spirit of what all these

Old Testament passages mean and how they fit together. And some of them are talking about you're going to do as the savior.

And so it's for this reason that we, unlike Mary and Joseph, we shouldn't be surprised at Jesus seeming carelessness or his ignorance of his parents' intentions to leave and go home to Nazareth.

It's not that Jesus was disobeying his mom and dad, rather that he must have been so enraptured by this opportunity to be present and able to dialogue in the temple with the greatest students of God's word that he had ever met.

He's just not aware of the departure of his traveling party. You can easily imagine him saying something like this.

How awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God. And this is the gate of heaven.

Those are the words of Jacob in Genesis 28, 17, but we can easily imagine Jesus thinking that to himself, going, man, this is it.

This is the place. And it's likely that Joseph and Mary left

Jerusalem thinking to themselves that their responsible 12 year old was in the caravan somewhere as they traveled a full day's distance before realizing that he was not with them.

They then had to travel another full day back and then spend at least a portion of that third day searching Jerusalem, maybe checking in with their local relatives, trying to find him until they find him in the temple.

And here he is, look back at Luke 2, 41. What's he doing in the temple here? After three days, they find him sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.

Now we breeze over that really quickly, but I wanted to point out, Jesus didn't know everything yet. He's asking questions.

They're not just rhetorical questions like, you guys should know this, right? He's acquiring information.

He's processing, he's synthesizing the information. Here's this 12 year old boy skillfully engaging with the greatest

Bible scholars of his time. Maybe he had Psalm 119, 99 through 100 in his mind, which reads,

I have more insight than all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the aged because I have observed your precepts. So thinking back to our earlier examination of Luke 2, 40, this gives us the first immediate proof of the

Spirit's powerful work in his life to bring him to wisdom through the faithful exercise of his human faculties.

Jesus had put in the work of learning the word of God and applying it to the work of growing in his relationship with God the

Father and fighting temptation. You can see the evidence of his sense of his relationship with his father in his first words, first recorded words that we have.

Why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house?

The point is that he was aware in a basic sense that God is his father and that his life had a specific purpose that he was pursuing through a study of God's word.

The statement of Mary seems to indicate surprise, which may indicate that Jesus' first 12 years had been so normal and so unremarkable from a human perspective that to see

Jesus initially walking in the steps that would fulfill all of the prophecies that Mary and Joseph had received from the angels and from God through the angels' prophecies to him at his birth, that they're still surprised 12 years later.

Really? Is this what you're doing? Now, as interesting as the episode in the temple is, and I wish

I could spend more time there, we need to focus on verses 51 and 52. Look at 51 and 52 again with me.

It says, and he went down with them and came to Nazareth and he continued in subjection to them.

And his mother treasured all these things in her heart. Jesus kept increasing wisdom and stature and in favor with God.

Now, imagine Jesus' sense of excitement and fulfillment at finally having been able to visit

Jerusalem, to participate in the Passover feast that he had only read about in the law, to be able to dialogue with those who could skillfully interact with him at a heightened level of understanding and to experience the positive fulfillment of having begun to pursue the special path that God prepared him for.

He's on that path. This is the preparation step. And then imagine that Jesus has to realize,

I have to go back to Podunk, Nazareth, a backwater village, fishing village in Galilee, where it was unlikely that he would be surrounded by skillful teachers and fellow learners, people who could dialogue with him at this level.

He has to go back and continue to learn his father's carpentry skills, which don't get me wrong, learning from your dad can be great, especially carpentry.

And he had to subject himself to the sin -stained parenting of his father.

And Joseph and Mary, what does he do? He does the right thing by the power of the spirit.

He goes back to Nazareth and he continues in subjection to his parents.

He learns obedience. For the ultimate expression of his obedience to God is not going to be found in disobedience to his parents, but rather obedience.

He cannot be the sinless son of man if he disobeys Exodus 20, verse 12.

Honor your father and mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the

Lord your God gives to you. Now, Jesus' obedience on the cross was the culmination of a series of choices that built his obedience muscles.

He chose to submit to the will of the father to be incarnated. He's now choosing to submit to his parents as a child.

He's choosing to grow in obedience to the word.

As a youth. And ultimately he will choose to obey whatever the scriptures say is required of him as the

Messiah. So what is the commentary on this that's provided by Luke through the

Holy Spirit in verse 52? And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.

I love this verb increasing. In the Greek, it literally means to kind of, to beat forward like you're hacking your way through a tense undergrowth, through a forest.

It also can mean like a smith forging a metal, hammering it to lengthen it out slowly but surely.

It's a process without shortcuts. So this highlights for us several basic observations and implications that we'll finish as we think through this.

Observation number one. Jesus had room to grow. As a 12 -year -old, he was not yet ready to begin the work and the ministry that he would assume at his baptism at around 30 years old.

As a 12 -year -old, he's not ready. That's the observation. Here's the implication. Being immature or incomplete is not a sin.

Staying there is. It is not sinful for Jesus to be immature, incomplete, and dare

I say it, ignorant of certain facts or pieces of information.

By extension, for us, being immature or incomplete in our knowledge of the scriptures is not a sin.

Staying there is. Second observation. The stature.

Jesus needed to grow physically, intellectually, practically, as well as spiritually.

God's plan for his life included the whole package of humanity.

It's not enough for us to focus on physical growth, intellectual growth, practical growth, or even spiritual growth for ourselves, for our children, for our grandchildren.

Like Jesus, this is the implication, we must grow in all areas by the power of the

Spirit. And we must help our children, who may not yet be believers indwelt by the

Holy Spirit, which can be a painful process to wait till they are, but we must help our children to grow by pointing them to Christ.

This is how you grow physically, practically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Third observation. As Jesus grew and lived a normal human life as a carpenter in a poor, relatively ignorant community, he grew in favor with God and men, and men.

Implication, relationships, and reputation matter.

Who you are in the community, in this body matters, as well as God's favor for you.

Let's summarize. We've seen two reasons why Jesus had to be authentically human.

The first is he had to grow in wisdom by the Spirit. And secondly, he had to learn obedience by the

Spirit. Now, as we study the humanity of Christ, we can rejoice, we can absolutely rejoice that the life that he lived is more like ours than we might think.

It's way more like ours than we've ever imagined. This is encouragement as we embrace the task of growing in sanctification through the same

Spirit that Jesus knew, loved, and depended upon.

Sanctification is absolutely hard work. It's hard.

And it requires faithful, consistent growth to become more like Christ, that steady, chopping forward through the forest.

We must remind ourselves, God sent his Son to dwell among us and to live a life of wisdom and obedience that we can imitate if we will do so as he intended, by the

Spirit. So let me give you some questions that you can use to apply these truths to your heart today and through this week.

Question one, are you allowing the Spirit to work within you, to bring you to increasing levels of spiritual wisdom and maturity?

If so, in what ways are you allowing the Spirit to do that work? Secondly, have you plateaued or declined in your progress?

Did you start strong, but now you're kind of trying to hold steady and maybe dipping back a little bit?

If so, what has led to that plateau or that decline? Do you have a hunger for God's word that is an evidence of the

Spirit inside of you? If so, how are you feeding that hunger?

Do you have a strong desire to obey God? In what ways are you demonstrating that part of obedience?

And lastly, when you disobey, do you call out to the

Spirit of God to enable you to obey like Jesus did?

He did not sin, but he did the one. May God grant us the grace and the mercy to apply these truths to our heart and life this week.

Let's pray. Our Father, you are the God of wisdom and light, and you have shown forth beautifully through the words of Luke today.

We see you and your providential plan for humanity displayed perfectly through the early life of Jesus.

We rejoice in his human frailty and the way in which he depended daily on the

Spirit to fill him with wisdom and grace that he needed to grow in obedience to the

Scriptures. Grant us that same Spirit, that same wisdom, the same grace that we might grow in that same obedience to the same

Scriptures both today and throughout this week. In your Son we pray, amen.