Submissive Son

Good morning. I have to give maybe a warning. This is what might be called a spoiler alert. I might be ruining every Disney movie for you. There's something troubling about most Disney movies, not all. They're missing parents. The parents die at the beginning of the movie? They're just never present? It's a disturbing regular pattern in that most of these movies are a coming-of-age story, and it appears to be a thesis that is put on us over and over again is you come of age without parents. They need to be moved out of the way. I might be reading into it too much, but there seems to be a philosophy of the self that there's a becoming without belonging. Well, that is until you find your prince charming and then you have your own belonging and that's a whole nother lie that we'll have to deal with another day. It's a constant message. Come of age, become who you are without the assistance of God's good ordained means that are parents. This isn't something new. There's been a war against institutions from the very beginning. In Genesis 3, Satan intentionally attacks the family in the garden to bring about a problem between the male and the female, the husband and the wife, and then right afterwards we have a sibling rivalry. God's institutions are good for us. The family, the governing authorities, the church, each of these have been under attack by Satan and the world at some point, and sometimes these actually attack one another. This morning we're going to be looking at the goodness of the family as we see what might be one of the most clear pictures of Jesus' humanity as a son of Joseph and Mary. This morning we're gonna be looking at the call to the family, husbands, wives. It's a sacred, God-ordained institution. It's a sacred union you've entered into. Children, you've been given parents. provide for you, to protect you, to be the guide on the tour of growing up citizens God has given us a government to submit to, to pray for. Our text this morning points to this parent-child relationship. We see the dialogue between Mary and Jesus, which is very interesting. And important, I wanna highlight two kind of things we've gotta wrestle with here. In 49, Jesus asked Mary, why are you looking for me? Do you not know that I must be in the Father's house? At the same time, Luke is going to tell us, being led by the Holy Spirit to inspire these words that he submitted to his parents, verse 51. We have the perfect, sinless son of Joseph and Mary, And yet we have this interaction between verses 40 and 49, and it's going to lead us to wrestle. Jesus is fully God. We've seen that clearly declared in stories past. The angels come. This child that will be conceived without you knowing a man, Mary. He's the son of the Most High. He's holy. Elizabeth declares, you are the mother of my God, my Lord. Last week we saw the Savior, the Christ is this 40 day old child that Simeon lifts up. And now we fast forward to the only story we have of Jesus' childhood. Until we see him entering into the ministry at the age of around 30. We have a lot in the infant child, actually in the womb child, we have that little story of his circumcision in the presentation of the temple, now a 12 year old. And it's significant. It's significant because these are the first recorded words of Jesus. Why are you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house? I want to draw our attention to two other emphases that Luke brings out to show the humanity of Jesus. Verse 40, a summary statement, and the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him. And then verse 52, and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Children, verse 52 is what I really want to emphasize as your verse today. We'll come back to it in a moment, but I want to say it a couple times so you make sure we hear it. There's four characteristics to what Jesus is growing up to. He's increasing in wisdom. And wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. Wisdom begins with recognizing that God is always meant to be worshiped in every word, in every deed, in every action, every thought. Wisdom begins with acknowledging that there is a God who created you and expects much of you. Increase in wisdom. Increase in stature. Grow in strength as you grow with more strength and more, your body's growing. Well, here I'll just give a simple application. Eat the vegetables your parents put before you. They're feeding you well to grow in proper stature and strength as God designed. And here, in favor with God and in favor with man, there's a social aspect. You should be looking to, as you grow in wisdom, to grow in favor with God by believing Him and obeying Him and wanting to live the life He designed you to live. And with other people. This is, children, why we ask you to look adults in the eye when they talk to you. Look in the eye and acknowledge and listen. We should be seeking to grow in these four ways. Children, we want you to grow in these four ways. No human has perfectly grown in these four ways except for Jesus, but here we see he's a model. The real human. The way we were designed to grow. Challenge for adults. This is what it means to be human. Jesus is fully man. perfectly developing and growing as a human was meant to be. And if we want to look at the design for the image bearer, an image bearer grows up. One last challenge. For those who believe in Jesus and are called to follow him, that word must is significant. As we seek to follow Jesus and he must be about his father's business, so must we be. Parents, children, believers, guests. I want to first walk through the story and then we'll make some observations and conclusions about Jesus. Our setting begins in the temple again. The parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. The Passover is what we just heard Dan read from Deuteronomy 6, it's a reminder of how Israel was enslaved to Egypt and God delivered them out as his judgment passed over the houses of Israel It was the significant feast and as faithful Israelite parents they went every year and here at the age of 12 We have a new kind of action. The setting is 41 and 42 The temple was significant in the gospel of Luke in the life of Jesus The whole gospel opens up with a temple scene with Elizabeth and Zechariah. This is the closing out of Jesus' childhood with a temple scene. The book of Luke is going to end with a temple scene. The book of the Bible, the revelation, the end of the Bible is ending with a temple scene. Here, as every Israelite family was supposed to, according to custom, they take their family, Jesus' 12, And they're at the feast. Verse 43, we see the tension heighten. When the feast had ended, they were returning. And notice the specific declaration. It wasn't that they forgot Jesus. It wasn't that he didn't understand. It's very clear and intentional. The boy, Jesus, stayed behind. Now, families would travel together. There's probably a whole caravan going back to Nazareth because it was safer to travel that way. You can see that as they lost him and they realize it, verse 44, they look among their relatives and acquaintances, there's a caravan, there's a large group. That's important, first of all, because we might be tempted to think, Mary and Joseph, how could you lose your child, the Holy One of God? But there's a whole caravan. it would be possible and quite likely that Mary thought he was with Joseph and Joseph thought he was with Mary and sometimes the men and the women might travel a little separately and might think who's over there, who's over there and then when they gather together and say well where are their kids, let's count them up, okay they're missing one. Now if you think they're bad parents because they've lost a child because one might have thought the other was the other, let me just be clear, that's going to happen after church today. Might probably be my kids. I'll talk to my wife. I thought you had her. No, you had her. No, okay, well let's go find her. So let's not jump to judgmental conclusions here, but they have traveled an entire day away. They recognize the child's missing. They search among the relatives. They travel back another day, and then the third day, they find him. Verse 46. This is astonishing in itself, and we can just imagine you've traveled a day away from the big city. Your 12-year-old is there by himself. And no matter what the angel told you about this child 12 years prior, mom instincts come in. Fatherly instincts come in. The fear that's boiling up, the worry They travel back, and three days later, they find him in the temple, and he's sitting among the teachers. He's listening to them, asking them questions, verse 47, and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. He's 12. We might think of the Jewish custom of the bar mitzvah. That was a tradition created after the time of Jesus. That's when someone becomes a man at the age of 13 in a celebration. They declare him a man, rather. The age of 12 is significant here in that at 12, a child is expected to take on more responsibilities in the home as much as we can know from culture and custom. But 12 is really significant because he's 12 teaching the teachers. This would be like going home and realizing your 12-year-old son, Philip's 12, Matthew, John, or 12? And you come and realize, oh, we left the church, and they come back, and, well, one of them's up here, and the elders are sitting at their feet, and they're teaching us. It's a surprise that a 12-year-old would know more about the law than the religious leaders who have been studying it have been set aside to teach it. He is the great teacher, and he's already amazing with his own understanding of the law. Now, they hear him, they see what's happening. Verse 48, they're astonished. But Mary's mother instincts are full on and hear her question. Son, he belongs to her. Son, why have you treated us so? There's an assumed, culpability in that question. There's an assumed accusation in the question. Why have you done this to us? Behold, we've been searching for you and we've been in great distress. This is a good, true, honest mom moment. Verse 49. Jesus responds, why were you looking for me? Did you not know? Let's just full stop here and capture this, a 12-year-old boy, son, talking to his mother, who's frantic, who's distressed, who's been worrying about the worst for a few days. And the response is, you know, what's the big deal? Don't you know? Imagine you walk out from the store with all your children, you're packing them into the van, and you realize one's missing, and you go back and you find the child, and their response is, my mom, don't you know? It's a significant statement, and we need to remember, this is the perfect, sinless, human being, Jesus, but more so, we need to remember, this is also God. He is giving a proper response to show that he has a higher authority, a higher mission. There might be a reminder here of you remember that I am the son of God and I have a higher mission. There's a responsibility, an anointing, an appointing. Children, this is not a model for how to respond to your parents' questions. He's speaking as the God child, making it clear about why he needed to be focused in on a different matter, his heavenly father's business. The fact that this actually resolves the story, the tension is he's been left behind, the tension is that Mary and Joseph are in great distress, this is the resolution. It's a reminder to Mary, this is God's son. There's no discipline. Now, if we picture this, we go back into the store after we've lost a child, and maybe in aisle seven, they're leading a Bible study. You're astonished, but you're still upset. There's a way in which the child was supposed to come. There's a way in which Jesus is doing something here that's unique that really does demonstrate his deity. After the story, we see Luke gives a narrative conclusion. One, the parents did not understand. There's still something astonishing about a virgin birth. There's still something astonishing about the angelic announcement. There's still something astonishing about the shepherd of the announcement and Simeon and Anna and all the people that are testifying about who this child would be and now even himself, he's testifying about who he is. It's difficult to understand. But notice Jesus, he goes back down with his earthly parents to Nazareth and he submits to them. He submits to them. And then he increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man. That's the summary of the story. I need to give a rubric of sorts to really help us understand how to apply this story. There's many ways to talk about the gospel. The gospel changes so much about us. God fixes so many of our sin problems, and that's why we have different pictures of the gospel. We have the marriage picture to show the intimacy and the relationship. We have the legal way of talking about the gospel, the justification, you've been forgiven of your sin. We have different ways of talking about the gospel because it does so much. We can have the offices of Christ. Three different ways in which the gospel comes to us. The prophet of God who speaks the truth in our lives. The priest who intercedes and provides sacrifice. The king who's victorious. This morning I want to give you three pictures that complement one another that we're going to see in this story, the last one being the most emphatic. The first way we think about the gospel is Jesus is the suffering servant, the substitute. Jesus came to be the man God created. The creator took upon creation. He came to be like us in every way so that he would be able to die for the sins we've committed. Here we think of the cross specifically and the way the gospel needs to be regularly reminded that our sins were paid for on the cross when Jesus died. He is the suffering servant who became our substitute. That's one way to talk about the gospel. Another way is Christ the victor. He rose again. He conquered death. He conquered Satan. He conquered sin. Now we're set free from the power of sin. He is the suffering servant. He is the victor. And then the third way we can think about the gospel. He's our model. He's our example. We're called to imitate him. Now, I put him in that order because it's very important If you only hear about or think about Christ the model, it's going to lead to some kind of legalism because it's only what you do. We imitate Christ only after we have acknowledged and believed we are sinners who need his forgiveness and we see that he's exalted having been resurrected and see the right hand. Now we want to follow him. All three of those have to be present in the way we think about Christ and the gospel. that they have to be put in proper order. And just to be clear that we know that there's a model teaching, if we think about Ephesians 4.15, Christ is now the measure of what a mature human looks like and believers are supposed to grow up to the measure of Christ. Or more specifically, 1 Peter 2.21, Christ left us an example so that we might follow in his footsteps. And the call there is to submit, even to harsh treatment. Or 1 John 2.6, whoever says they abide in Christ, they ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Finally, more straightforward, Mark 8, 34. Jesus says, if you would be my disciple, you must deny yourself, carry your cross, and follow me. I believe here Jesus presented as a human for our sake so that we can learn from him. He is also fully God so that we can be saved by him. Point number one. Jesus the human He is most human. He is the perfect human He's more human than we are Because our humanity is tainted by sin He is the most human because he was most submissive. He is most human because he was most obedient to God He's born of a child to Eve He was conceived in the human womb As a baby, he could not feed himself, clothe himself, protect himself, clean himself. He was a child. The book of Hebrews tells us it was important that he, it was necessary that he lower himself even lower than angels. He became like us. One, to be that propitiation, that substitute. But even more, that he might be the merciful and faithful high priest. You can meditate on that later in Hebrews 2.17, but This is very important. If you're not a Christian, I hope you hear this. God is not distant or apathetic to our troubles and pains and suffering and worry. He's become like us in every way so that he could sympathize with us. He understands temptation. And you might say, well, he's sinless. How can he understand temptation? The one who suffers temptation most is the one who does not give into it. He's able to sympathize. He's able to recognize our troubles, our pain, and to relate to them. He's not distant. He's not apathetic. No, he's very near. He helps us in our temptations. But we have to be careful of thinking this is just me and me alone, and no one ever has been like this, and no one ever stands it. No, God came to live like us. so that our fears will not paralyze, our doubts will not disturb us. He is perfectly human so that he can represent us and he can care for us. Second, we see here Jesus, the child. Not just a human and a perfect human, he's a child. Well, this is why I'm thankful there's children here with us. I'm thankful to hear the children of the service right now. While we are working to figure out something for children during the sermon hour, but right now, I'm thankful the children are here, and children, please listen. Children, be careful in how you respond to your parents' correction. Jesus here is going to respond. As a 12-year-old, he's gonna respond, and he's going to tell his mother why he stayed back, and it's a good right statement. Because he's a son of God, and he has a, different kind of mission. This is one of those verses that we can take out of context and miss completely. Kind of like when Paul says, don't let them despise your youth. He's referring to age there, not conduct. Children, we must remember that a command that is still pressing in for us. And adults, this is one that continues. Honor your father and your mother. Children, that is the command today that we believe Jesus is going to honor in that verse 51 summary. He's submitting to them and he's honoring his father and mother. The desire to want to grow up without the restrictions, corrections, and rules of parents is to throw off what God has designed. As God has determined that you would increase in wisdom and strength It's supposed to be a guided tour. It's supposed to be a guided tour. It's important. If you feel you must go against your parents, if you feel you must give a wise appeal, what is it that makes you want to not do what your parents are asking? Is it a command from God? Or is it a desire within? Are we going to throw off our parents because of a sinful desire within? Are we gonna seek to honor our parents because that's what God has commanded? If you're a child and your parents continue to tell you things like no, and you're a child and your parents continue to give you instruction and chores and expectations, praise God. because that means they love you. If your parents insist on giving you expectations of how you should conduct yourself at the dinner table, in your conversations with others, in your conversations in the home, in the way you treat your siblings, be thankful. Your parents love you. Children, Jesus is an example for you in that word, submission. He submitted to his parents. Now, I want to try to capture how interesting that is. Jesus, the son, is their God. Jesus created Mary and Joseph. And yet he submitted himself, he humbled himself to not only depend upon them for his physical stature, well-being, as he depended upon Mary for milk to grow, but he submitted to them in their wisdom and their instruction. The creator condescends down to us, he comes down to us, and even though he has authority as God over them, he submits to them. Even when Jesus knew better than Mary and Joseph, I think he submitted to them. Let's just picture this. Joseph at some point probably told Jesus, hey, here's some seeds, let's just say carrot seeds. Go plant them in the garden and here's how you're gonna plant them. You're gonna take the seed and you're gonna dig this kind of a hole or this kind of a trench and you're gonna put them in this way. Now, Joseph is telling God, who created the seed and the soil, how to plant it. And maybe Joseph doesn't know the best way to plant it. Maybe Joseph is telling Jesus, this is how I want you to plant it, and it's not against God's will, and it's not something in scripture, so Jesus says, yes, Father. even though he might know, probably knows a better way to do it. Children, there's going to be a temptation to think your parents don't understand, and maybe they don't understand the way you understand, but there's a temptation to think you know something better. Jesus did at some point know something better, and yet he still said, Yes, mom. Yes, dad. He is your model. He is your example. You like to play the imitation game when somebody says something, you just repeat it? You do that kind of to be funny, but also kind of, you know, picky. Play the imitation game. Jesus is here for you to imitate in submitting to your parents. Now that's a confusing word, maybe submit. I think there's three parts to submit. There might be more. Somebody can help me afterwards. To submit means you first listen. Listen. Your ears perk up. When mom or dad speaks and you know that tone, you know that voice, when mom and dad are trying to tell you to not do something or to do something, listen. Tune your ears to listen. Second, acknowledge. And this is the one that is very important. Next step. When you hear your parents speak, give them the eye contact. Give them the head nod. Give them the full stop, yes, mom, yes, dad. Submitting means you listen and you acknowledge, and then you agree. And that might not mean you are fully satisfied in what you are instructed to do, but you agree by saying, yes, mom, yes, dad. God has given you parents in a position for you to learn how to respect authority. Your teachers in school have a position of authority. Your pastors at church have a position of authority. Your parents at home have a position of authority. All of life, when you get a job, is going to have to require respecting authority. Worship is knowing how to respect authority. Learn how to do so by submitting to your parents and honoring them. Let's go back to verse 52. Memorize this. He increased in wisdom in thinking much of God and less of himself. In thinking much of God as a human being. In thinking much of how God is in control of all things and he had a reverence for him and a fear. He increased in stature, he grew up like a normal human being in the physical ways, in strength. He grew up socially, in favor with man, respecting his elders, respecting his peers, not lying, not stealing, not gossiping. He grew up in favor with God, being obedient to him. If you want a goal, if you want a direction, if you want an orientation, if you want to turn yourself in a way in which I want to know how to grow up, that's the verse. And if you want to know how to fill that out, read the book of Proverbs. The third thing we see about Jesus, he's a teacher. At the age of 12, he is asking questions that confuse the religious authorities and he's giving answers that amaze them. And we're going to see this throughout the scriptures where he opens up the word and he shows how he is a fulfillment of all these things from the Old Testament. Today, Jesus is our teacher. Now, let me be very clear. Everyone loves Jesus, the teacher. Right? Everyone loves something Jesus said. Love your neighbor. We can hear that throughout all of our culture. Jesus, the teacher, the wise sage, is pretty easy to get along with because if he's just a teacher or a wise sage, you can take what he said and what you liked and just ignore the rest of it. And that's what we do. But he's Jesus, the teacher, who has come down to be the true, full revelation of God. He is God's Word in flesh. He is the final prophet. He's actually the Son of God who comes to give us the final and absolute truth. Jesus is only gonna be helpful for you as a teacher if He is first your God. And if He is your God and your Savior, He must be your teacher. We can't divorce these two things. He is our God and Savior. He's redeemed us. He's purchased us with his own blood so that we can now follow his teaching and knowing what it means to live a holy life. What does he teach? At least part of what Dan read earlier from Deuteronomy 6 is repeated for us in the New Testament as the greatest command. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemy. Love one another as Christ has loved you. This is how to live an orderly life. Jesus the teacher models for us as well here. Verse 49. He lives his life based upon what he must do. Look at that, verse 49. That must has to weigh heavy. Must. As you think about the past week, what does it demonstrate about us that we must do? What weighs heavily, with the most gravity, with the most weight, that we treat as a must? And then if we hold it up to scripture, does it really carry the same amount of weight as we give it? This is the challenge, and this is why we come and remind each other regularly of what the real musts of life are. Are we prioritizing in our own lives what are the real God-ordained musts? And here's the reality, we all have a must. We all treat something with a must. Is it our Father's house? Another translation would be Father's business, the Father's things. Father's house is a legitimate translation because he is in the temple and this is where he is, but it could also go back to the teachings of the father. Must, what carries the weight of must? Parents, I just gave it my all to help your kids. I feel I must speak something to you. This isn't about parenting. But I think there's a principle here. If we're going to train up our children who aren't the authors of the law, which is who Jesus is, who need the law, who need the gospel, we need to make sure we've properly prioritized our must. We need to make sure that we are meditating upon God's word, that we are prioritizing and demonstrating what the right priorities of life are. The danger of being a stumbling block to our children should be terrifying. Because our hypocrisy is just too easy to see. It should be confessed. And notice I didn't say if you're a hypocrite, when we're hypocrites, when we're not doing what we teach, when we're not following along with what God has prioritized. Oh, one of the best ways we can teach our children is to confess that and ask for forgiveness. But the best thing for our children to see is consistency in our properly prioritized lives of the must. So Jesus is a human being. He's dependent upon parents. He's here functioning very much like the Son of God who has become flesh. And we start to see his ministry just hinted at here. We're gonna see it fully later in Luke, just the next chapter. I want to emphasize our fourth thing we see about Jesus. He's the son of God. He's come to save us from our sin. He's come to give us a new way of living. He's come to model for us a new way of life. And again, we need to just hang out here on the word must. What must you do to become a Christian? What must you do to become a disciple? First thing is recognizing what God has said is true about me and my own self and that I'm a sinner. I've lied. I've stolen. I've lusted. I've murdered with anger. I've not honored my parents. I've worshiped all kinds of crazy stuff. Not God. and to recognize that the Holy God is only good if He actually would punish me for those sins and that punishment and an eternity suffering His wrath and on my own I can do nothing to clean myself up on my own I can do nothing to wash away that sin but I can see that Jesus lived the life I was supposed to live He died the death I deserved and on that cross He took that wrath. He took that penalty so that I can be forgiven. So that I can now be adopted into the family of God, not a stranger, not an alien, not distant, not under condemnation from God, but actually brought into his family where I get to call him father. It's a new position given to us. And the only way we get it is by faith. saying to God, amen. That is what you have done for me. That is what I need. But here's the reality. Now that we're sons of God, what does it mean to be a disciple? What does it mean to live as a son of God? A child who's adopted who has a hard time understanding, you know, the new framework of the family. Each one of our families probably has a different routine at dinner. And just think about the importance of a dinner with a family and a child who's adopted, say, at the age of 12. Let's stick with the age. They'd be kind of curious. They'd be observing. They'd be trying to figure out, how do I fit in this family? What are the customs? What are the routines? We're now adopted to learn a new set of customs, a new set of patterns, a new set of routines, a new set of musts. We now have a new father. who's given us this glorious inheritance. Christian. To be a son of God means we want to be like the son of God who purchased us. It means we want to hear what the Father says and do it and we want to see how the Father represented Jesus to us as a true human and be built up into him. It means we deny our sinful desires. It means we endure suffering. It means we follow. Our musts are important to recognize. Because whatever we say, whatever we believe, whatever we have unintentionally declared and practiced as a must, it is what is driving your life. Are we living a life that says, I must love the Lord my God with all my heart? I must love my neighbor as myself. I must love the other believers as Christ has loved me. This is not legalism. This is recognizing I've been redeemed from sin. Now I can follow Jesus in his pattern out of sin. Christian, if you're going to call Jesus your savior, you must call him your teacher. By faith we're forgiven for not listening, acknowledging or agreeing. By faith we're disciples of Jesus who now listen to Jesus, agree with Jesus, acknowledging him. So what must you do? Continue in faith, following his example. Today we need to reflect, what is it I must do? What is it I'm treating as a must in my life? What am I putting in pen on my calendar that says this is what I'm always going to do, no matter what, and what is in pencil? Does it align with what God has commanded? And as we confess those things, we treat as if God, he forgives us. And as we seek to live the life he intends for us, he gives us more grace. Will you pray with me?