[0:00] You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama. Our passion is to experience and express grace. Join us.
[0:13] And one of the ones that I quickly said was Jeff Hamm. You see some things about him, about his biography there in your bulletin, but I won't refer to that. I want to give you two pictures of his heart. Jeff and I have known each other for a long, long time. Jeff was, grew up, we grew up in the same church. And when he was a sophomore in high school, I had him and two other guys that met with me at our house every Tuesday morning at 6.30 a.m.
[0:45] These are sophomore boys in high school. And being a parent of two boys, that doesn't happen very often. And these were men who truly wanted to know God. And it was fun to be with them then.
[0:58] And another part of that was, I taught a Bible study at the same church, and Jeff attended that. And the thing I noticed about Jeff, more than anything, was his intense passion for the Word of God. It was just incredible. And I want to liken it to, since we're in the bowl season, I want to liken it to, you know, the two big schools in the state of Alabama. And the fan base is just unbelievable. Not the obnoxious ones, the intense ones, okay? That's what Jeff is for the Word of God. I mean, where, you know, if you talk to one of these fans of either of those two schools, they could tell you some really, you know, inane facts about 1937 winner or 1945 winner or who ran the ball here or whatever. And they can give you chapter and verse. Well, Jeff can do that from the eternal Word of God. And it's so fun when I sit with him now, I leave the conversation going, oh my goodness, this man has a passion for the Word of God. So I hope you'll see that. And thank you so much again, Jeff, for being with us today. Indeed, I am in the awkward situation of speaking to those, some of whom I've known since I was 14 years old. But for that, I truly do give thanks and glory to God.
[2:28] It is good to see some of you that you are persevering with the Lord and that you are growing and walking steadfastly with Him. But with that said, despite what Tim said, there would be undoubtedly some of you here against whom I would have sinned in my youth. And for that, I truly beg your pardon and forgiveness. By the grace of God, I'm not who I was. I'm not the same person that some of you knew long ago. I'm not the same man, thankfully, that my wife married 24 years ago tomorrow.
[3:02] And so by the grace of God, crazy as it sounds, I'm an ordained PCA pastor, having served two congregations. And most recently, I was serving, had the distinct pleasure of serving as a moderator of the Presbytery in South Alabama. But alas, the fathers and the brothers discovered very quickly, I did not know what I was talking about. And so they took action and informed me that if I were to continue in the ministry, then I'd have to go back to school for remedial education. And so that is what I'm doing now. And so I've taken a sabbatical to do exactly that. And so we, my family, has moved here to Huntsville, where my wife and I are both from, while I have descended below the radar to drop off the grid to try to pursue the PhD in systematic theology in Aberdeen, Scotland. And so I go back, God willing, next month for the last time to finish this final and third year of this crazy commitment.
[4:06] With all that said, I would ask that you would now help me to glorify God and ascribe honor to Him as we read together, most reverently, God's most holy, inerrant, and infallible Word. And I was informed that you have the English Standard Version in front of you in your pew racks. I'll try to read along in the same version. But let us do that as we come now to do exactly that for which we are created. We confessed it together. If you did that sincerely, what is the chief end of man? In other words, what is the reason that we are here? What is the purpose of life? And that is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And so we do want to begin that even now and renew that commitment and confession that we've just made together. And so I'll be reading from Luke, the gospel according to this Gentile convert. He never knew Jesus. He was not one of the twelve. He was the beloved physician of the Apostle Paul, and he is from Troas, which is on the coast of the Aegean Sea in modern-day Turkey.
[5:15] this convert. This convert from, of all things, this former fanatical terrorist, Saul of Tarsus, turned apostle. Luke studied under Paul, was converted under his influence, and traveled with him, and then back to Palestine to investigate the truth regarding this man, Jesus, about whom he writes.
[5:48] And so listen very carefully. Luke 41 through 49. That's chapter 2, if I did not mention that. Now, his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.
[6:05] And when he was 12 years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group, they went a day's journey. But when they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. After three days, they found him in a temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, Son, Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.
[7:07] And he said to them, Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?
[7:21] The word of God for the people of God. Thanks and praise and glory be to God. Let's pray.
[7:34] Father, we come before you and we confess that in the very beginning, you created everything out of nothing. You called into being that which was not there by the power of your word.
[7:47] And we do thank you that it is by the same word that you have informed us and revealed unto us who your son is, the infinite God-man. And we do praise you for him and the redemption that he has bought for us and applied to us via the Holy Spirit.
[8:03] And so we do ask again, kind sir, as we come down to this portion of the worship that we seek to give to you, we do ask that you would once more fulfill what John the Baptist told his disciples about Jesus when he was getting more attention than him, that he would increase and that I would decrease and that you would use this beggar to show other beggars where I have found bread.
[8:38] And we do pray this for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen. A decade ago, a book was published that immediately hit the New York Times bestseller.
[8:53] Six million copies were sold. It was translated into over 40 different languages and spinning off of this, a blockbuster movie was released. And the story rocked the faith of many evangelicals.
[9:12] As you know, the Da Vinci Code opens with this murder at the Louvre and it spins off into this quest for the Holy Grail and we cannot cover all the details of that narrative, but the premise of the narrative is this, that the historical Jesus of Nazareth is not the same as the Christ of the church.
[9:42] There is a real historical man, Jesus, but the church came along in the fourth century and it muddied up the waters through which he had originally walked and it added all these dogmas about the virgin birth, the miracles, and the resurrection, etc.
[10:00] and so there is really not that much that we actually know about the man in history, Jesus of Nazareth. We only know that which we received about Christ of the church.
[10:14] And so it goes in the movie that all this is encoded in the book as well. All this is encoded in the artwork of Leonardo da Vinci and if you were to study that, you would see that indeed Jesus of Nazareth had a lover, Mary Magdalene, by whom he fathered a child, Sarah, who is the ancestor then of this bloodline that exists in Europe today, really in the aristocracy of Europe.
[10:38] And so it continues. Now, anybody that's a student of history knows that this is totally bogus. The premise of the plot, I should also inform you, was based upon the fact that Constantine in this great power struggle to polarize his political enemies started this conspiracy theory and then he summoned together then these theologians across the European continent to Nicaea at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and there was invented Christology as we know it.
[11:15] That's when it came into being. And as I mentioned, if you're a student at all of history, you know the bogusness of that because on my shelf are books written by men that assert and subscribe to the deity of Christ that are written in the first century and the second century, long before Constantine lived in the fourth century.
[11:38] You've got Tertullian and Ignatius and Polycarp and Clement of Alexandria, etc. All these men that held to the deity of Christ. That was never questioned. That was not the reason for which the Council of Nicaea was summoned at all.
[11:53] It's because this guy Arius arose on the scene that was teaching that Jesus was the first created being, that he was not eternal, etc. But the Da Vinci Code is also just bad theology.
[12:07] The author, Mr. Brown, did not hypothesize the premise to his plot. It's old theology.
[12:19] Best summarized in the title of a book that was published in 1907 by a guy with the name of Albert Schweitzer.
[12:32] And the title of his book was The Quest for the Historical Jesus. And Schweitzer wasn't initiating this idea at all.
[12:46] In fact, he was summarizing preceding centuries of scholarship, beginning with these guys named Reimaris, Vrede, Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel, etc.
[13:00] All these guys that arose during the Enlightenment and saw, look, the universe is governed by the laws of planetary motion, etc. There is no God. We cannot believe in God. Jesus wasn't divine.
[13:12] The Christ, the church, must have invented all this stuff because it can't be true. Therefore, the Jesus of history is actually a distinct person and therefore began the so-called quest for the historical Jesus.
[13:29] Because the Christ of the church is distinct from the Jesus of Nazareth of history. Well, in our text today, we have a quest for the historical Jesus.
[13:45] And it is conducted not by Da Vinci Code detectives, not by Enlightenment philosophers, not by liberal critics, liberal theologians, but rather we see that those on this quest for Jesus are Joseph and Mary.
[14:08] and when we analyze their quest like we're about to do, then we learn that if one was to begin a quest, a sincere and a genuine and a wholehearted quest for the historical Jesus, then you will find the person who is no one less than human and divine at the same time, the Theanthropos, the God-man.
[14:34] Now let me prove that to you, and let's back up. We're going to pull some things together, just hold on to them, and then we're going to bring them all together and apply them to our own selves so that we might know therefore how we shall live in this dark world.
[14:56] Of the four gospel writers, the four evangelists as they're so called, Luke is the only one that tells us anything at all about Jesus after his birth and before the inauguration of his public ministry at the age of 30.
[15:10] And so I would assume, I haven't been here with you during the Advent season, I assume that this narrative, this wonderful and beautiful and majestic narrative has been reviewed where you had the shepherds and the wise men and all this glory and mystery and wonder and this then is the very next thing that we learn about that person.
[15:34] He's 12 years old and he goes to Jerusalem. And Luke informs us of the reason. Notice in verse 41, just follow along with me in your pew Bibles, I'll pull out a few things from some of these verses and I want to draw your attention to these verses so you know that I'm not deceiving you.
[15:51] But verse 41, we read that every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. In the Old Testament, there are three mandatory feasts for the heads of households to observe and of course it was highly encouraged that the family participate as well.
[16:07] The Passover, Pentecost, and the feast of booze. So here is this lovely family from the highlands of Nazareth. They go to Jerusalem for the feast.
[16:17] It is wonderful. It is lovely. Everyone has a good time but alas, school begins again next week. We have to go back to work and you feel the sinking dread in your bones of the future week.
[16:31] And so everyone has to leave and they go home but on the way home there is a little anomaly. A child is missing.
[16:43] Notice verse 43. After the feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem but his parents did not know it.
[16:56] Now I know some of you and I know where you vacation. So imagine you're on the Florida Panhandle and you're coming back home after vacation. Or maybe you're in Gulf Shores and you're coming up I-65 or from the Florida Panhandle and you're coming up 331 and it is crazy and it is stressful especially on 331 when it's two-laned and you're in just bumper to bumper traffic and by the time you get to Montgomery you're not even fit to be around.
[17:22] You're unapproachable. At least I am. And so I'm a mess. And so you can imagine by the time you make it to Montgomery and you discover that a child is missing.
[17:33] Now that's the situation here. Now I don't think that this at all implies that Mary or Joseph were negligent and irresponsible parents.
[17:45] For one thing they do turn around. And I've been tempted not to. In fact we've been in this exact same situation if you must know the truth.
[17:57] It was on a Sunday. I was a pastor and we got home after church and we're kind of assembling in the dining room where there is usually this, in our lovely dining room there is this lavish feast that is usually prepared by my bride.
[18:16] And I just quickly surveyed the situation and noticed we were missing a child. So I went back to the church unlocked the sanctuary. I had the keys to the sanctuary.
[18:27] I was the pastor. Went to the front pew and there he was. Fast asleep. Unconscious. Oblivious to the world and the panic that he had caused.
[18:41] And so we went back home merrily and happily. And so you see this is an easy mistake that could happen to any of us. which has happened to some of us.
[18:54] So it doesn't imply that they're irresponsible, negligent parents. But there's this additional factor that's involved. We might notice it when we consider how they travel.
[19:08] Notice verse 44. Supposing him to be in the group or another translation would read, the NIV reads, in their company. They look for him among the relatives and friends.
[19:22] And so they caravan together. They do not travel as isolated, compartmentalized families in their own vehicles to their destination.
[19:34] But it might be more akin to some of y'all on a Friday night football game and you've got to go to some place in the boondocks of Alabama that you have no idea where it is. And so you might follow other people and some others might even tag along with you.
[19:49] And as children, as they are, they want to go with their friends. And so your children might be in a car ahead of you and then their children might be with you in the rear and there might be several of you traveling there at the same time.
[20:00] And so they travel in a caravan. They don't necessarily travel as compartmentalized families knowing where every person in the family is at any given time.
[20:10] So they all go down together. But there's an additional factor in how they get there in this traveling. The children or they're walking, if you don't know. They're walking. They're not actually traveling in their own vehicles.
[20:22] And so they're walking and the children lead out first. They're followed by the women and then the men follow last. The reason being it would just be pointless for the men to leave because we're always in a hurry and we'd always be frustrated as everyone is tagging along and it would just ruin everyone's day.
[20:39] And so the children, being the slowest, they set the pace. And they lead first. And then the women fall along behind the children. And you can imagine there they are talking about whatever was posted on Facebook, etc.
[20:50] And whose kids are doing what. And then the men fall along behind them and they're talking about the cotton ball or more revelant things like bow hunting. And so they're all kind of distracted.
[21:01] And initially they do not notice, you see, that Jesus is missing. But then there's an additional complication with respect to his age.
[21:14] In verse 42, Luke informs us that Jesus is 12 years old. And that's very significant. You see, at the age of 13, a Jewish boy at this time becomes a bar mitzvah, a son of the commandment.
[21:33] Literally, that's what it means. And so the age of 13 is when a Jewish boy is recognized then as an adult member of the community. It's when he is accepted as a man, really.
[21:48] And so you can imagine the scenario then. You can perceive what might be going on. Here's Jesus. He's 12 years old. He's walking along in the caravan. What is Joseph thinking?
[21:59] Well, he's 12 years old. He's up front with the youth group. He's having a good time with his friends. And then Mary is somewhere along in the middle of this cluster. And she's thinking, well, Jesus is almost 12.
[22:11] He wants to assert his manhood. He wants to be respected. He wants to be viewed as an adult in the eyes of the man. He's back there with Joseph with the men somewhere and back.
[22:22] And so there's all this commotion going on as well. There's all these people. And so Jesus is initially overlooked accidentally at first. And then upon realization that they cannot find him, that he is not in the group, they begin this frantic search which ultimately leads them back to Jerusalem, you see, because Jesus is missing.
[22:48] And of course, we could stop here and apply the passage. We shouldn't take the time, but this happens so often to so many folk in churches today. Fine Christians, they assume that they are so close to Jesus, they presume that he is so near, they are so intimate, and they go merrily along in life one day and realize Jesus is not near them.
[23:15] He is distant, removed, far away. But we can't take time to dwell on that.
[23:27] Notice, Mary and Joseph return to Jerusalem and where do they find him? And this is tying us in to this identity and this quest that I want to pursue.
[23:40] Verse 46, we read, After three days they found him in the temple sitting among the teachers.
[23:54] Now, beloved, we should not think these are our wonderful teachers and the preliminary educations that we enjoyed from high school, our math teachers, our English teachers.
[24:09] These are the experts in the Scripture. and I love the rendering that the King James gives and I would not at all want you to think I'm one of these King James only people.
[24:22] I used to despise the translation in my youth. I just thought it was archaic. It's what my grandfather prayed. It just didn't even make sense. And now in my middle years I've come to enjoy the Old English a little bit more just because the majesty and the formality and the reverence.
[24:36] And the King James translates that he was sitting among the doctors. The doctors of the church.
[24:47] And so here is Jesus, you see, he is with the faculty of the departments of theology, the doctors of the church, doctor so-and-so and doctor this.
[24:58] He is sitting there with the chairs of theology from Heidelberg and to begin and Harvard, etc. And this is where Jesus' parents find Him.
[25:09] He is at the temple, you see, with the theologians. And notice what He is doing there in verse 46. After three days they found Him in the temple, He is sitting among the teachers.
[25:25] And I confess that this initially might seem insignificant. But it's important to realize that at this time in the history of the world and particularly in this region, of the globe, the great teachers sit down to teach.
[25:41] Even before Christ, among your philosophers in the Greek world, whoever your favorite philosopher is to read, Thales and Eximines and Eximander, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, all of these guys before Christ sit down to teach.
[26:04] And so does Jesus. You might remember Sermon on the Mount. What does Matthew record? Matthew chapter 5, verse 1. He went up on the mountainside, called His disciples to Himself, and He sat down and began to teach them.
[26:26] in His earthly ministry, Jesus sits to teach. Now incidentally, just in case you're curious, this all changed in the 4th century.
[26:39] John Chrysostom, he was the pastor of the largest church in Christendom, St. Sophia's Cathedral, in what was formerly known as Constantinople, but is now Istanbul, Turkey, a former Christian sanctuary, now converted to a Muslim mosque, preview of the upcoming attraction in all of our sanctuaries.
[27:02] It's what exists in Aberdeen, Scotland today. We won't go into that. And because of the bad acoustics in this magnificent cathedral in which John Chrysostom, the golden mouth, preached to the crowds overflowing, because the poor acoustics in the cathedral, Chrysostom, at that point, began to stand up to teach, and thereafter it became tradition in Western civilization.
[27:27] Within Christendom, pastors began to stand to teach. And I don't think that it all implies we need to start a crusade to go back to sitting and teaching, but that's just the historical matter.
[27:40] But here's Jesus, you see, in the Gospels, and he sits down to teach. And again, notice where he is sitting. In verse 46, the text says he's sitting among the teachers. Another translation says he's sitting in the midst.
[27:53] He's in the midst, you see, because he is in the middle of the teachers. Jesus here is the center of attention. Now, you can read some fine commentators and they say, well, look, you shouldn't make too much of this, but I think that is the exact reason that Luke records it.
[28:12] And so notice now the situation I'm trying to draw for you. We have the great theologians of the Jerusalem Temple and they are in session.
[28:23] Kind of like the American Academy of Religion, maybe as we have in Britain, the Queen Society for the Study of Theology, etc. And that's the situation. These great theologians are in session and a little boy walks over to the back edge of the class and sits there quietly.
[28:46] And as the lecture continues, he leans over to the nearest professor and he comments on the lecture. And these two begin to talk and then another professor nearby overhears their conversation, perhaps unintentionally at first, but he begins to listen to what they are discussing and he's drawn in to what they are talking about and he nudges the nearest professor to him and he points to the boy.
[29:14] And so it continues and everyone is looking and staring at the boy and they are fixated on the boy and then one by one everyone stops and is silent and they're looking at the boy.
[29:31] And so I'm reminded of the old and I'm dating myself of the old EF Hutton commercial. Perhaps some of you remember it. Maybe some of you young adults don't even know it.
[29:43] You can Google it. It's a brilliant marketing strategy. So here we are in this restaurant and it is noisy and we're trying to listen as the camera zooms in onto a particular table in the corner.
[29:53] We're trying to listen to the conversation between these two dialogue partners, right? But we can't hear them because the restaurant is so noisy. There's this clamor of noise in the background with multiple and various conversations going in and perhaps the camera zooms in to the wait staff that's just dropped a glass and so you hear the shattering of glass and then you notice that someone is cutting meat on their plate and there's that scraping sound and so there's all this noise in the background but we're trying and straining to listen to what these two are discussing and then one of them drops the name E.F. Hutton and the restaurant is silenced.
[30:33] Right? Because everyone is straining to hear what E.F. Hutton the financial broker has to say about where you should invest your money and you can hear a pin drop in the restaurant.
[30:53] And I don't think that that is dissimilar to the situation that we have here in the temple. Everyone is straining to hear the boy one by one.
[31:06] They stop talking and they look over at this lad and all eyes are glued on him and they are fixated and they're straining to hear what he has to say and so notice now the scene.
[31:18] Here is this boy in the middle of the theologians and he is sitting which means that the boy now is the great professor and the professors around him are the students.
[31:32] And this is verified in what follows. It's very important. Notice in verse 46 again we read after three days they found him in the temple sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking them the questions.
[31:53] Jesus is asking the questions and giving the answers but it's important to notice that he is asking the questions which does not at all imply that we have the case of this naive incompetent ignorant little boy he doesn't know so he's asking the questions because he's so curious but rather it is exactly what we see throughout Christ's earthly ministry right?
[32:19] Over and over and over again we see Christ controlling the conversation by asking the questions time and time again you remember he is attacked he is accused he is questioned he's questioned and he turns the tables and he responds and he puts the counter question Jesus refuses to allow these unbelieving presumptions control the conversation he will not allow it so he turns the table and controls the conversation by asking the questions good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?
[33:01] what does the law say to you? in trying to entrap him teacher do we have to pay taxes to Caesar whose inscription is upon the coin?
[33:13] by what authority do you do these things? well I'll tell you John's baptism from whence did it come? from heaven or from men? on and on and on attacking him again well then why did David say the Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand till I make your enemies a footstool for your feet if David is calling him his Lord then in what sense is his son?
[33:40] over and over and over again Jesus will not allow the dialogue to be framed by these unbelieving presuppositions but rather he takes control of the conversation and he turns the tables and he puts the counter question and he teaches and he forces people to come up to the conclusions that he wants them to reach by asking the questions and so it is here again Jesus you see is sitting and he's asking the questions they don't have the answers and so he's answering them for them and notice then the reaction of the professors in verse 47 everyone who heard him was amazed dumbfounded shocked stunned speechless not because he's a mere lad but notice they are amazed at his understanding and that is the issue this colossal understanding that he possesses which would be extraordinary for anyone this unfathomable knowledge that the boy possesses this vast comprehension you see his profound grasp of reality and that is the issue you see they are amazed because he is leading them along in this discussion asking them the kinds of questions that makes a person's heart skip a beat especially for these men imagine here's this boy in the temple and he might ask what is the temple for what does the temple symbolize oh
[35:31] God's dwelling place here on earth well then what would be existentially greater for God to dwell among men symbolically in a break building or for God to dwell among men in the flesh and then why the continual sacrifice look at the worshipers bringing in lambs and goats it's unending it is repetitive it is continual why does this go on and on would it not be better if there were one lamb of God that would take away sacrifice forever that would abrogate sacrifice and end it once and for all so that it could be publicly declared it is finished it is over the sacrificial system has ended or what did the prophets say about the Messiah when will he come is not the time drawing nigh and then how will he come in what manner do you really think that he'll come riding on a war horse to overthrow the
[36:37] Roman army or rather will he arrive as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and like one from whom men hide their face that he would be despised and esteem not and they are amazed at his understanding and so you could probably already connect the dots and see why Luke includes this in his gospel remember the context to whom does Luke write flip over a page two pages notice chapter one verse three it seemed good to me also having followed all these things closely for some time past to write an orderly account for you most excellent who Theophilus we don't have time to dig into the title but
[37:39] Theophilus is a high ranking official in the Roman Empire arguably a Roman governor not in Palestine that's why Luke goes to Palestine to do the research on the behalf of Theophilus about which after he accumulates it he writes the man two different volumes this gospel and the book of Acts both dedicated to this one man that nobody knows about to which these works given to him consist of over more than a third of the New Testament and so Luke is well connected and he's writing and researching the account of this historical man on behalf of Theophilus you see Theophilus is a man that is on the edge of faith or he might be in the faith but he's had his world rocked because he's all of a sudden been introduced to all these accusations about Jesus that Jesus was against you see the Old Testament religion he was on trial for teaching against the law of Moses and the Jewish religion but now Theophilus has the other side of the story now he can see through all the rhetoric and the propaganda and the political spin
[38:44] Jesus was not against the Old Testament notice here he is in the temple rather Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament and the temple system destroy this temple I'll raise it up again in three days you see and therefore Jesus studies the Old Testament scriptures and he masters them at the earliest conceivable age because the Old Testament points to him it is about him it is fulfilled in him and perhaps then we can see why they hated him so much in his earthly ministry because when he is a twelve year old boy he amazes them and staggers them and forces them to deal with conclusions they cannot cope with and he questions them and he questions them but again they cannot cope with it but at that point you see he's a twelve year old child they can pat him on the head and push him away with his mommy but eighteen years later the same Nazarene shows up to the same temple asking the same questions to the same teachers and again they cannot cope with the conclusions that he is forcing them to arrive at but this time you see things are different this time he's no child and so this time they crucify him but this is where
[40:17] Mary and Joseph find him in the temple which then leads us to the most important discovery about the true identity of the historical Jesus of Nazareth and it's embedded here in this dialogue between the boy and his mother notice verse 48 they were astonished when they found him there and what does Mary ask son why have you treated us so another translation reads son why have you treated us like this and what does the text go on to say you see we have we have we have been searching for you in great distress the NIV reads we've been searching for you in great anxiety the Greek text reads we have been searching for you in pain you have caused us all this pain this heartache we were traumatized we did not know what happened to you we had thought perhaps you were abducted or you were dead in a ditch or in the street we did not know and you've caused us all this pain and and why have you treated us like this in her statement you see is pregnant with accusation that he has mistreated them you see that he has been disrespectful disobedient insubordinate inconsiderate and so here you have the young mother of a young child that is emotionally exhausted physically spent has not slept in three nights traumatized worried to death over her child in a panic and now she finds them first sensation is instant relief and it's transformed into anger and she unloads not that I've ever witnessed this
[42:34] I've never seen a young mother go ballistic on a child but I'm assuming that is the case here and so again Jesus would not allow the conversation to be controlled by unbelieving presuppositions and so he he gains control of the conversation by the counter question why were you searching for me and then another question but first let's pause and let me forewarn the students here what we have in the text you should not try at home it is very dangerous it could bring great bodily harm upon yourself because here Jesus rebukes his mother he corrects very respectfully and of course sinlessly praise be to God he kept the fifth commandment to honor your father and your mother for me since I did but he kept the commandment for me to earn righteousness for me for you for us and he pushes back very respectfully and here he speaks to her not as her son but as her savior and he asked didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house now notice the exchange
[44:13] Mary says didn't you know that your father and I have been anxiously searching for you searching for you in pain searching for you in distress whatever your favorite translation didn't you know that your father and I have been doing this and to whom is Mary referring who's been with her searching the city streets in the darkness of Jerusalem Joseph Jesus responds with a counter question didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house and where are they in the house of the Lord the house of Yahweh who brought everything into being out of nothing by the power of his word the one who sits enthroned above the heavens and the earth and so that the earth is his footstool the stars are mere dust at his feet this is the one about whom we are speaking this is the one to whom
[45:13] Jesus is referring he is in Yahweh's house didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house i.e. I am the son of God and so beloved what I want you to see is here we have an unmistakable undeniable unequivocal claim to deity upon the part of a twelve year old boy you see even at the earliest age of twelve years old Jesus is conscious of who he is he is he is self-aware of his own identity and so it is exactly not like the liberal theologians would have us to believe that well here is this this lonely carpenter up in Nazareth and he bumped his head in the carpentry shop and he experienced some kind of brain trauma and so whenever he revived from his unconsciousness then he had this schizophrenic personality and one minute maybe he supposed he is a carpenter and the next minute he envisioned himself as this apocalyptic leader riding on the clouds of heaven or maybe as it is supposed which it is not like maybe
[46:38] Jesus was just working out in his hot carpentry shop or was walking through the wilderness and he had some kind of heat stroke and so he began to hallucinate with these visions and he imagined himself in as this messianic figure and it is exactly not like we are told to believe that maybe at the age of 30 there was this man and he had this mystic experience and so he felt more than any other person in the history of the world that he was more in touch with the oneness that is exactly what we don't have you see here in the text here is this 12 year old boy that claims to be divine and so from the earliest time of the lad's childhood from his earliest moments of cognition when he could think about himself and this world in which he inhabits from his earliest moments of being self aware that he was breathing and that he had fingers and when he looked at himself this lad was aware of who he is that I and the father are one if you have seen me you've seen the father and so here we have this unmistakable claim upon the part of a 12 year old boy that I am the
[48:04] Christ of the cosmos the image of the invisible God in whom the fullness of deity dwells which then leads us to one obvious question that we've allowed to remain why the search why the manhunt he's 12 years old he's almost an adult he knows what he is doing he knew everyone was leaving he saw them going to the caravan and he stayed behind intentionally he tarried on purpose for a reason knowing good and well that it was said his parents in a panic that they would be traumatized and search and all the inconvenience and annoyance and trouble and distress and anxiety that he would cause he intentionally put them through that for a reason in this respect
[49:29] I think Kierkegaard has something I think he's on to something to quote him Jesus did this Kierkegaard's writing about Jesus he's a crazy philosopher but with that aside he's writing about Jesus remember all the messianic secrets Jesus healed someone don't tell anybody the crowd show up he withdraws why and Kierkegaard writes to release the infinite passion of inwardness to release the infinite passion of inwardness in other words to trigger within a person to excite to stimulate within a person this infinitely passionate desire for Christ and Kierkegaard even likens it under these lovers this guy is really into this girl these young children these adolescents and so she plays hard to get to all the more make him that much more crazy about her so that he would pursue her with all the more zeal and zest and so it's to release this infinite passion of inwardness to trigger this incredibly intense longing for Christ this relentless yearning this burning thirst this craving for Christ that will forever remain unsatisfied unquenched until one begins the quest therefore to find him and that in finding him he reveals himself to them in a way that they will never forget and so it is here is
[51:24] Jesus you see he's 12 years old and he knows that his time is coming and so he lingers in Jerusalem to initiate this request this quest for his parents that they might search for him and find him personally for themselves that he might reveal unto them who he is and that he knows his own identity didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house don't you remember the mysterious birth Mary don't you remember what the angels said that the most high will overshadow you so that the holy one will be born to you will be called the son of God Joseph don't you remember what the angels said to you that you'll call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins in order that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled that a virgin will conceive and bear a son and you shall name him
[52:30] Emmanuel God with us didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house and so he initiates then this quest that they might search for him and find them and so I submit to you the quest for the historical Jesus begun by Mary and Joseph continues today with liberal scholars and enlightenment philosophers and da vinci code detectives but they will ever search in vain because they search in the ghetto of enlightenment ideology and they search in the intellectual prison of atheism and yet the only place on earth where he can be found as a 12 year old child you see is here in the temple didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house didn't you know didn't I know didn't the world know that he had to be in his father's house and to
[54:07] God alone be glory let's pray father we do come before you and beg of you kind sir that by the spirit that you would initiate within our hearts this infinite passion of inwardness that we might look for Christ and search for him trust that you have spoken to the prophet that if you search for me you'll find me when you search for me with all of your heart and we do pray this again for Christ's sake amen for more information visit us online at southwood.org Thank you.