Luke 2:49

Luke 2:40 , Luke 2:49; Luke 2:52

(with Mark 6:3; John 4:34; John 10:18; John 10:30)

The Germ of Christian Manhood.

Man and God are in eternal relation. As you cannot have an upper without an under; a brother without sister or brother; a son without a father or mother, so you cannot have a true conception of man without God. It lies in the very nature of the Father that He will not leave us men, and it is in our structure that we cannot rest without our Father. Man had lost God. Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God's mighty and age-filling effort to put Himself within the throbbing heart of humanity.

I. This perfect correspondence between Jesus the Son and God the Father is the source of all true and enduring growth. Man getting into his true relationship to the Father gets to the source of all life and progress. Apart from God true manhood is an impossibility. We must come into fellowship with Him, be partakers of His nature. That is the one and only garden in which the plants of righteousness can be grown.

II. Such trust in a communion with the Father is the source of cheerful patience and serene self-control. It is hurry that enfeebles us and takes the beauty out of our work. We will not mature. Our "hour" is always come, and we are restless for the tented field. We do not compel leisure, or seek the strength that is born in solitude, and so we are poor weaklings, beaten by the first foe we meet and able to offer nothing to God that will stand the test of His consuming fires.

III. The spontaneity of self-sacrifice, one of the surest marks of a perfecting manhood, is due to this trust in the Father, and consequent acceptance of His will and work, as the absolute rule and business of life. Nothing reveals the prodigious interval between us and Christ like the difficulty we find in sacrificing ourselves for the welfare of His Church and of the world.

IV. This, too, is the secret of the plenary power of men. If there is one thing science has fixed beyond all question, it is this, that you cannot get the living from the dead; that a man must bein order to do. Jesus Himself partakes of the fulness of the Father, and so becomes the fulness of the Godhead, and out of His fulness we receive grace for grace. Partaking of God's nature, by being possessed of the mind of Christ, we live His victorious life, and get His full use of nature, His fine self-control, and His ever-fruitful service.

J. Clifford, The Dawn of Manhood,p. 34.

References: Luke 2:40. G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 72; Church of England Pulpit,vol. v., p. 34; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., p. 89; B. F. Westcott, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvii., p. 17. Luke 2:40. R. Lorimer, Bible Studies in Life and Truth,p. 119; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 127; W. Hanna, Our Lord's Life on Earth,p. 31.

Luke 2:49

These are brave, heroic words. They breathe a spirit of ardour and devotion to duty. They are not the language of one who is to make pleasure his grand aim in life, and is minded to give himself to indolence and ease. They betoken a high and manly principle, a noble self-respect, a strong decision of character.

I. Each of us is to make the Lord Jesus Christ our one supreme model. From the earliest stages of His life, He stands before us as our faultless pattern. In His childhood, in His young manhood, He claims our closest imitation. Just as He entered upon life, so should you. Though the story of His life be short, it is wonderfully comprehensive. It seems as though He touched humanity at every point. Hardly an aspect of our earthly life in which He may not be seen. Whatever noble ideals of life you have do not forget to set Jesus Christ above them all.

II. The character of one's career in life may generally be augured from its outset. These first recorded words of Jesus struck the keynote of His whole after-life. Now, it is safe to say, that the ten years that intervene between the ages of twelve and twenty-two are almost decisive of a man's subsequent course. This is the formative period; and in so far the most important part of life. It is then that the character is formed. It is then that the moral nature is taking shape. If habits of indolence are formed; if languor and irregularity are indulged; if selfishness and conceit are encouraged; almost in all certainty your life will be a failure. The man who carries the day is he whose strong sense of personal duty and responsibility replies to all who would tempt him to idleness and self-indulgence, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?"

III. Learn from the text that the present life is intended for work, labour, and business. "I must be about business," said the Divine Youth, who is our only perfect model. We are not sent into this world for play, nor for self-indulgent ease; Jesus was not. We are not sent here to enjoy the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of toil; that is a wrong conception of life altogether; work is not a mere means to an end, a hardship to be submitted to, as an avenue to enjoyment; nay, the world is intended to be a great workshop, and each of us is to take his own share, and find his own fitting department.

IV. If we are Christians, our daily work, whatever it be, is to be viewed as our Father's business. The most effective of all ways in which God is served, is by living to Him in everything, consecrating to His glory all the details of our ordinary prosaic life.

J. Thain Davidson, Sure to Succeed,p. 251.

The Child Jesus a Pattern for Children.

I. The Child Jesus was a diligent Scholar. He did not neglect His tasks, or slur them over anyhow, or think, as perhaps some of you think, that getting out of school was the best part of the whole business. We might be quite sure that He diligently attended to the wise Rabbis who asked and answered questions, who uttered so many wise and witty proverbs, and told so many pretty stories, if only because He Himself was, in after years, so wise in asking and answering questions, and spoke so many proverbs and parables which the world will never let die. When Joseph and Mary brought Him up all the way from Nazareth to Jerusalem, He was so charmed to listen to what the wise men of Jerusalem had to say, that He stayed on in the Temple three days after his parents had left the city. And it was not to see the beautiful courts and colonnades that He stayed; nor to listen to the exquisite singing of the choirs; nor to see the priests offering sacrifices on the altars; much less was it to gaze on the wonders of the streets, the markets, the bazaars, He stayed simply that He might sit at the feet, i.e.attend the classes, of the learned and venerable doctors of the Jerusalem schools, both asking them questions and answering the questions they asked of Him.

II. Mark again that this good Scholar was also a good Son. The Hebrew boys of our Lord's time were taught good manners, as well as good morals. They were enjoined by their parents and their masters, to salute everyone they met in the streets, to say to him, "Peace be with thee." And the Boy Jesus was well brought up, and was full of courtesy and kindness and good will; for not only did He grow in favour with men in general, but He had a large circle of kinsfolk and friends who loved Him and were glad to have Him with them. We know, too, that He had never grieved His parents before; in His eagerness to learn He let them go on their way home without Him. For when they had found Him in the Temple they were so astonished that He should have given them the pain of seeking Him sorrowfully that they cannot blame Him as for a fault, but can only ask Him why He has treated them thus. He must indeed have been a good son to whom His mother could speak as Mary spoke to Jesus.

III. This good Scholar and good Son was also a good Child of God. He was always about His Father's business. He felt that He must be about it, wherever He went, whatever He did. The one great thing He had to do, the one thing which above all others He tried to do, was to serve God His Father, not simply to become wise, and still less to please Himself, but to please God by growing wise in the knowledge and obedience of His commandments.

S. Cox, The Bird's Nest,p. 16.