#16 Lu. 2:39-40; THE EARLY YEARS OF JESUS
Introduction:
None of the Scripture writers tell us much about the
early life of Jesus. They tell about His birth. They tell
us about His ministry. They tell us about His crucifixion
and His resurrection. But they say almost nothing about
those years in between.
Luke, like the others does give us a little bit, but he
skips over a great deal. The best that we can do is to take
the little bit that each gospel writer
gives us and then try
to put together the pieces so that we can
get somewhat of a
picture.
I would not at all want you to think that I am critical
of the writers of Scripture for not
telling us more about
this part of the life of Jesus. After all, they wrote by
inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God and
we know that the
Holy Spirit did not make a mistake. It was not God's
intention to write a story for our entertainment. It was
God's purpose to give us the information
that we need to get
saved and we need to live our lives within
the will of God.
And, after all, that is the part that we
are most interested
in.
Yet if we will but take the little bit of information
that the Bible does give us about the
early life of Jesus, we
will see that this, too, is am important
part of the inspired
word of God. Without it we would be missing out on some
valuable information. Every part of the Bible is important
to us and every part of the life of Jesus
is important to us.
Let me remind you that when Joseph and Mary carried
Jesus into the temple of God at Jerusalem
to present Him to
God the Heavenly Father, Jesus was but
forty days old. In
verses forty-one and forty-two where Luke
tells of them
carrying Him again to the temple, Jesus is
twelve years old.
So it should not be surprising to us if
Luke skips over some
information that some of the other gospel
writers tell about.
I.
The story as Luke begins it
Note verse thirty-nine. V. 39,
"And when they had
performed all things according to the law
of the Lord, they
returned into Galilee, to their own city
Nazareth." Luke
first tells us that while Joseph and Mary
were at the temple
on the fortieth day of the life of Jesus
that they performed
all that the Law of Moses had instructed
them to do. For one
thing, they presented Jesus to God the
Father in keeping with
the Law of Moses. When God delivered the Children of
out of Egyptian bondage, God spared the
firstborn sons of
Israel because the Israelite families had
the blood of the
Passover lamb on the door posts. The firstborn of the
Egyptian families were all killed because
they did not have
the blood of the Passover lamb on the door
posts. God said
that therefore every firstborn son in
every Israelite family
belonged to God and the parents were to
bring him to the
house of God and give him to God. This Joseph and Mary did
on that fortieth day of Jesus' life.
Another thing that the Law of Moses required was that
the mother of a newborn child present two
offerings to God.
One was a sin offering. It was intended that in the
presentation of this offering the mother
would acknowledge
to God that she is a sinner and that she
is in need of
forgiveness of sin. Mary presented such an offering to God
on this occasion in keeping with the Law
of Moses. Actually,
it was an expression of what she had
already done in her
heart a long time ago. Long before she ever told that she
would conceived Jesus, Mary had repented
of her sin and
trusted in the coming Christ as her
Savior. She was already
a saved woman before she conceived the
Christ-child.
Secondly, the Law of Moses required the mother of a
newborn child to do was to present a burnt
offering to God.
The whole animal was to be burned on the
altar of God. It
was intended that in the presentation of
this offering that
she would present her whole life to
God. Just as the whole
animal was to be burned on the alter, even
so her whole life
was to be presented to God and to be
surrendered to His will.
God wanted people to know that He not only
wanted them to be
saved, but He wanted them to surrender
their lives to Him
after they were saved. God does not approve of saved people
living ungodly, immoral, dishonest
lives. God wants saved
people to live clean, upright, honest
lives. God does not
approve of people whoremongering
around. God does not
approve of lying, cursing, and filthy
tongues. God does not
approve of drinking and gambling and
whatever else one's
depraved sinful nature might incline him
to do. Saved people
are God's people and God wants them to
live like they are
God's people.
Mary had already been saved and she had already
surrendered her life to the will of God
the Heavenly Father.
When she presented that burnt offering to
God there in the
temple of God on that fortieth day of
Jesus' life, she was
but re-committing her life to Him to do
His will. She was
giving evidence of this by doing all that
the Law of Moses
required her to do on this occasion.
II.
The short-cut that Luke takes
Now keep in mind that Jesus is only forty days old when
this took place. It is right at this point that Luke takes a
short-cut.
He tells us that after Joseph and Mary had done
all that the law required them to do that
they went to their
home in Nazareth. And they did.
I would not at all want to
imply to you that Luke did not tell us the
truth. He told us
the truth in what he said, but he took a
short-cut. He did
not tell the whole story. He skipped over some things that
Matthew has told us about.
Matthew told us about the coming of the Magi, the wise
men from the east. They came to see Jesus while He was at
Bethlehem.
It was as a result of their coming to Bethlehem
to see Jesus that Herod gave order to kill
all the male
children in and around Bethlehem from two
years old and
under.
It was as a result of this murderous order of Herod
that Joseph and Mary took Jesus and fled to
Egypt. And they
stayed there for about two years until
that particular Herod
died.
It was only after they returned from Egypt that Joseph
and Mary moved back to Nazareth. Luke does not tell us all
that.
He tells us only that after they had fulfilled all
that the law required of them that they
returned to Nazareth.
They did.
They were just a long time getting there.
III.
His growth as Luke describes it
In verse forty Luke makes a statement that stretches out
over the entire span of those early years
between the
appearance of Jesus at the temple and His
return there twelve
years later. V. 40, "And the child grew, and waxed
strong in
spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace
of God was upon
him."
Let us take what little Luke has told us and see what
God has intended for us to get out of it.
First of all, note that Luke tells us that the child
grew.
He grew as other normal children would grow. The
Bible does not tell us how much Jesus
weighed when He was
born.
But we are to understand that since He was born as a
baby, He weighed somewhat about the same
weight as other
normal children are when they are first
born and was about
the same length.
He was born rather small and He grew at about the same
pace as any other normal child would
grow. He nursed and
drank milk just like any other child would
do. He would have
to be burped like any other child would
have to be burped.
Eventually He began to eat solid food, like other babies
would do.
Pretty soon Joseph and Mary would notice that He
was heavier than He used to be.
Let me say to you right here that Jesus was a full-
fleged
human being. He was fully human in every
way. He was
also Deity God, but He was a human being.
Like other children, He could not talk when He was first
born.
He had to learn to say, "Mama" and "Dada" like other
human babies learn. He had to learn to say words and then He
had to learn to put sentences
together. He had to learn His
ABCs and learn to read and write like
other human children
learn to read and write.
He had to learn to walk like other human babies learn to
walk.
He could not walk when He was first born. He had to
learn to work those legs and to
crawl. Then He had to stand
on His two feet and to put one foot in
front of the other.
He probably took a few falls just like any
other normal baby
would fall.
Jesus had a human brain and a human body and human
emotions just like any other human being
would have. Now
here is a mystery. Spirit God which indwelled that human
body was never anything less than Almighty
God. The Second
Person of the Trinity was always at all
times all powerful
and all knowing. But the human brain that was in that little
boy had to learn just other little boys
had to learn. His
little arms and legs had to develop
strength and skills just
like any other human being had to develop.
I repeat: He was human in every
way. If this were not
so, He could not have been a substitute
for us when He died
on the cross for us. You see, we have sinned and the penalty
of sin is suffering, and when Jesus went
to the cross He had
to be able to feel pain and to suffer
every bit as much as
other men are capable of suffering.
There was, however, one great difference between the
human body that Jesus dwelled in and the
human bodies that we
dwell in.
His body did not inherit the sin nature from Adam.
Jesus was not born of an earthly
father. He was conceived in
the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit of
God. Therefore, He
did not inherit Adam's nature, but rather
He inherited the
nature of the Holy Spirit of God. The human body of Jesus
was just as capable of sinning as our
bodies are, but the
Spirit God which indwelt that body could
not---or at least
would not---sin.
Jesus was a model child in every way.
Luke said that as
He grew in body, even so He grew in
spirit. He waxed strong
in spirit.
He learned what Joseph and Mary were telling Him
to do or not to do and He obeyed. Even from the very
earliest stages He obeyed His
parents. The threw no temper
tantrums.
If they another child wanted to play with His toy,
He was willing to share.
Luke said also that He was filled with wisdom. That is,
He not only was quick to learn facts, but
He also quickly
learned what the facts were all about and
how they were to be
applied to life. He was wise beyond His years in dealing
with other children. He was wise beyond His years in dealing
with every situation. Even in those early years, He was
often wiser than the adults. Down in verse 52 Luke said that
He increased in wisdom as time went
by. He increased in
wisdom and stature. As He grew taller in stature, He also
grew taller in His wisdom.
IV.
The grace of God the Father on Him
Luke then makes a statement that the grace of God was
upon Him.
The word, grace, is normally used in Scripture to
mean "unmerited favor,"
"undeserved favor." This,
however,
could not be the meaning with Jesus. All of the favor from
God the Father that Jesus ever got He well
deserved. It was
well earned.
So what Luke is telling us here is that God the Father
was in some kind of special way showing
that He was well
pleased with the life of His Son, Jesus
Christ. God was
bestowing favors upon Him that would make
it obvious to
Joseph and Mary and to anyone else who
would but oversee,
that God was pleased with Him. This is the message that God
the Father actually put into word later at
the baptism of
Jesus, but even now in these early years
of one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
and eleven years of
age God the Father was showing by the
special favors that He
was giving Jesus that Jesus was no
ordinary human being. He
was One in whom God the Father in Heaven
was well pleased.
In verse fifty-two Luke even said that Jesus increased
in favor with God. This does not mean that God liked Him or
loved Him any more than He always
did. What it means is that
God showed His favoritism toward Jesus
more and more as time
went by.
Those who were close to Jesus could hardly help but
notice that God as especially good to
Him. If one failed to
notice it at the moment, it would soon
become very obvious as
time went by and God increased His favors
to Jesus.
V.
The things His childhood especially want to emphasize to
us
I have tried to point out to you that the writers of
Scripture had very good reason to skip
over most of the
events of this part of the life of Jesus
because they were
more interested in telling us about His ministry,
His death,
His resurrection, and His ascension. They were more
interested in having us know how to be
saved, how to live,
and how to carry on the work of a New
Testament church in
keeping with God's will. But they did want us to know that
Jesus was every bit as much human as we
are---yet without
sin.
And they wanted us to know that in spite of His
complete humanity, He is also Deity God in
every sense of the
word.
And they wanted us to know that by the time He was
about to go to the cross, He was well
aware of what pain and
suffering was like. As a human being who had lived thirty
years in human flesh, He was well aware of
what human pain
was like.
Yet knowing this----knowing this full well---He
was still willing to go to the cross and
to suffer for us
that we might be saved.
What I want you to know today is that Jesus Christ is
well worthy of your faith and trust. If you are aware of
your own guilt of sin and you know that
you deserve to be
punished in the everlasting fires of hell and
yet you want to
be saved, then there is hope for you. Jesus Christ was born
in human flesh. He lived a perfect sinless life in human
flesh.
As the perfect sinless man, He went to the cross of
Calvary and there He suffered the anguish
that was necessary
to be your substitute. His suffering on the cross of Calvary
can be counted as your suffering the full
penalty for every
sin that you commit. What God requires of you if you want to
be saved is that you acknowledge your sin
to God and ask
Jesus Christ to save your soul.
If you will trust in Jesus Christ, then Jesus will
cleanse you of every stain of sin. There will not be one sin
left to send your soul into hell. God will then take you and
give special favors to you in somewhat the
same way as He did
to Jesus.
He will bless you as long as you are submitted to
His will.
Then when the time comes that you breath your last
breath and your soul goes out into
eternity, you will not go
into the fires of hell, but you will go
into the Paradise of
God.
One of these days God will send Jesus back to this old
world and Jesus will call your fleshly
human body out of the
grave.
You will re-enter that body. That
body will be
changed into a glorified body that can
never die again and
you will live forever in the glory of
God. If you think you
receive good thing in this life, you just
wait and see what
God is going to do for you in the next
life. All the good
things that you ever receive here is not
to be compared with
the good things that God will do for you
then.
Conclusion:
But I must warn you. There is no
way that you will ever
get saved unless you call on Jesus Christ
and ask Him to save
your soul.
Won't you do it today? Won't you
trust Jesus
right now, right here and get this matter settle
with God?