Luke: In His Father's House
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Intro to Luke
Luke’s Gospel is the longest of the four Gospels. It was written by Luke as part one to a two part collection, the first being Luke’s gospel and the second being the book of Acts. This Gospel was written primarily to a Greek audience but was a collection of first hand eye witness accounts of the life of Jesus. Luke was writing it to a man named Theophilus, and he does so very carefully and intentionally. As a doctor, Luke was an educated man with an attention to detail. This is evident in his style used in writing this gospel. We also know Luke was an eye witness to the events in Acts and traveled with Paul, accompanying him on a few of his missionary journeys.
Recap the story up to this point
The first two chapters of Luke tell the Christmas story. John the Baptist predicted and born, Jesus promised to Mary, census enrollment completed, miraculous baby birthed, circumcision performed, name given, purification carried out, firstborn presented and dedicated, blessings and prophecies heard and stored away in amazement—the new family returned home to the obscurity of Nazareth, having done everything required by the Law.
Chapters one and two of Luke show Jesus as a baby and as a young boy. Chapter two closes with a story of Jesus when He was only 12 years old.
Every year his parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival. When he was twelve years old, they went up according to the custom of the festival.
What is the Passover?
The Passover is a celebration and reminder of how God delivered His people out of slavery in Egypt. It was a time when people would come from all over to the city of Jerusalem to partake in sacrifices and offerings.
Sacrifice the Passover animal only at the place where the Lord your God chooses to have his name dwell. Do this in the evening as the sun sets at the same time of day you departed from Egypt. You are to cook and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses, and you are to return to your tents in the morning.
And so everything was going according to plan. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus gathered their things and went to Jerusalem for Passover. They do their thing, pack their bags, and head back towards Nazareth, only Jesus isn’t with Mary and Joseph. He is still at the Temple.
After those days were over, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming he was in the traveling party, they went a day’s journey. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.
I have always found this story funny. If can for a second imagine you are Mary and Joseph. The immortal God and creator of the universe has been for a time put in your care. You are responsible for feeding Him, caring for Him. You go to a big city, you’re trying to do everything right, and then you lose Him. The thought of that gives me anxiety.
When I first started doing student ministry I was nineteen years old. My youth group wasn’t big but on special occasions we would have about twelve to fifteen kids for an event. One January we went to something called Winter Jam which was a concert that they would have in the St. Louis Blues arena. We get everything ready, the group is in the church van and we make our way to downtown STL. You can probably guess where I am going with this story. So we are at the concert and I turn around to do a head count and I’m missing two students. One of my girls and her boyfriend had wandered off. You can imagine how I felt in that moment. I start to call her and she isn’t picking up her phone. Finally she texts me and lets me know she had fallen down a couple stairs and was in the nurse’s station in the stadium and that her boyfriend had called his parents and left. I was happy to have found my missing students but it was not a fun half hour. Anything could have happened. STL isn’t the safest city in the world. There are all kinds of crazy people there. I’m sure the same was true in Jerusalem. In a big city anything can happen. Mary couldn’t text Jesus to see where He had gone. For all she knew He could have been gone forever. He could have gotten taken, He could have gotten hurt, He could have even mistakenly joined another group and be half way to Egypt. Nobody wants to be the person who lost the Son of God. They, I’m sure were fearful and worried, but I imagine they were motivated by their love for Jesus. They wanted to protect Him from harm and bring Him home. They were willing to give anything to get Him back, even if it meant three days searching through the whole city of Jerusalem.
As Mary and Joseph looked for Jesus I can’t help but think that that the feelings they had in those days were similar to those of Jesus’ feelings towards us. Jesus doesn’t feel worried or anxious or fearful about us since He knows all things. But Jesus came to earth searching for us just as Mary and Joseph returned to Jerusalem seeking Jesus.
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”
Like His parents Jesus wants us to be safe and at home with Him. He cares about our hearts and wants us to stop our wandering, stop living in darkness, and come into the light. This was His mission on earth, to seek and to save the lost. He was willing to do whatever it took to make sure we had a way to be restored to Him. Even if it meant three days in a tomb. His love for us motivated Him to give everything.
For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
So where is Jesus?
After three days, they found him in the temple sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all those who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.
It took Mary and Joseph three days to find Him and when they do He is sitting in the Temple talking to the teachers.
Why does Luke include a story like this?
To ground the narrative in historical fact. The stories Luke tells in this gospel are not mythology. These characters are real and human. Mary isn’t depicted as this perfect mom with a halo behind her head like all the paintings of her would have you think. She’s flawed. She doesn’t understand why Jesus does the things He does. She gets worried and fearful. She loses her son just like every other mom has probably done. If I had a dollar for every time my mom lost me at Walmart I’d be able to buy half the things they sell at Walmart. It is a very real story, and its one that would not be included if the New Testament authors were making up a mythology about Jesus.
Luke’s depiction of Jesus shows us the two aspects of his being. Jesus Christ is fully God, yet He is also fully human. He grew up like us. He understands what it was like to be misunderstood by His parents. He understands what it is like to grow up and be twelve years old.
He is like us in every way yet unlike us in that He is perfect. The beautiful thing about this story and what it shows us is the difference between our natures. We, having a sin nature, wander away from the Father. Jesus, being without a sin nature, wanders to the Father.
Of all the places to be found Jesus is found in the Temple. Have you ever wondered why it took Mary and Joseph three days to find Him? We look at this story and we think, of course that’s where He was. He’s Jesus.
Jesus tells us that if we seek Him we will find Him when we seek Him with all our heart.
You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.
This verse is written to a people who were doing everything they could to avoid seeking God. They were looking to satisfy themselves with every kind of sin they could. They were searching and searching for something only God could provide. They were neck deep in sin and it cost them their homeland. This verse hits in a time in Judah’s history when they were being ripped out of their homeland and taken to Babylon. They felt lost. They felt alone. But God offers them hope in the form of a promise. If you seek me, you will find me.
Jesus is never far away from us but too often we are looking for the things He offers in all the wrong places.
Where do you search for Him? Are you looking for peace, happiness, acceptance in places that can’t fulfill it? Are you looking to the things of this world to fill a hole in your heart all the while ignoring Jesus’ offer to transform it?
The love you need is not in popularity. The love you need is not in gratifying your flesh. The love you need is not in your boyfriend or girlfriend. The love you need is found only in Jesus. And until you seek Him, you will never find happiness in this life.
If you think about it, when you loose something and you’re searching for it, it is always in the last place you look. Why? Because when we find it we don’t keep looking for it. I loose my wedding ring like once a month, and every time I found it I didn’t keep looking for it. Imagine I pull my ring out of the couch cushions, put it on, and then continue to dig in the couch. When we are looking for meaning in life and finally come to find it in Jesus we have no more need to keep looking. His grace is sufficient for every need.
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” -C.S. Lewis
When Mary and Joseph finally found Jesus they responded like how any parent might respond.
When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
They were anxious. Fearful they had lost their son. But see how Jesus responds.
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked them. “Didn’t you know that it was necessary for me to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them.
There is something calming about being in the Father’s presence. Jesus isn’t afraid for His life. Jesus isn’t anxious. Have you ever wondered what a twelve year old Jesus might have done for food, clothing, sleeping arrangements for four days while living in Jerusalem? If I dropped some of you off in the middle of a city for four days you would just die. You’d be like whelp my options are die or talk to a stranger and I choose death. But Jesus isn’t worried about those things. He isn’t anxious about what He will wear or what He is going to eat. Why? He has entrusted Himself over to the will of God. He is focused on the Father’s business.
“Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add one moment to his life span by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t he do much more for you—you of little faith? So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
Jesus was about His Father’s business
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked them. “Didn’t you know that it was necessary for me to be in my Father’s house?”
Jesus at twelve years old was focused on the plan God had for Him. Even at such a young age He was committed to the mission. He may not have started His public ministry until He was thirty years old but that doesn’t mean He waited thirty years to start growing until then.
If you have put your faith in Christ, you have been called to live on mission. This semester as we look at the life of Jesus I want us to ask ourselves some hard questions.
What is Jesus doing in our community and how can I join Him in being on mission?
How is Jesus challenging me to grow in my faith?
What is He calling me to surrender?
I want our student ministry to grown into a launching point for the Gospel. Where you can develop and grow as a disciple, be sent out into your schools as missionaries, and share the love of Jesus with others so that they can come here to our student ministry and grow as a disciple and be sent out as missionaries. To do that we have to understand what it means to be about the Father’s business.
Am I willing to count the cost of following Jesus, surrender everything, and do what it is He is calling me to do?
Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
We are called to make disciples wherever we go
We are called to share the gospel so people around us can be transformed by its power and respond in obedience through baptism
We are called to teach others what we have learned to be true about Jesus.
Don’t let anyone despise your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. Until I come, give your attention to public reading, exhortation, and teaching. Don’t neglect the gift that is in you; it was given to you through prophecy, with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. Practice these things; be committed to them, so that your progress may be evident to all. Pay close attention to your life and your teaching; persevere in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.
We are never too young to be about the Father’s business.
We are called to set the example for people around us in the way we talk, in how we act, in how we care for others, in our trust in God, and in our purity.
We are called to dedicate ourselves to the Scriptures, in reading it, teaching it, living by it.
We are called to use our Spiritual gifts for the benefit of the church to serve those around us
We are called practice our faith, be committed to our faith, in a way that it is evident to all that we follow Jesus.
We are called to take great care in protecting our witness
We are called to persevere even when it is difficult, even when we might be tempted to sin
We are called to do all these things not for ourselves but for others, that they might come to know Jesus and have a relationship with Him. Why? Because the Father’s business is seeking and saving the lost. And if that’s His mission then it should be ours too.
When people are in need of a minister, a friend, a helper, and they come to you, will they find you being about Your Father’s business? Or will they find you wandering and searching for answers in places that can’t offer them.
We study God’s Word not just for our own benefit but so that we can also help others who are hurting. Without Christ we have nothing to offer people but poor advice, heartache, and brokenness. But with Christ we have hope, love, joy, compassion, truth, real help to offer to people in need.
When people come searching I pray they will find you at the feet of the Teacher learning and growing in your faith and wisdom, focused on the mission of God just like Jesus was.