Taking Care of the Father’s Business (Luke 2:41-52)
Luke’s account gives readers an opportunity to observe a youthful Jesus and his parents, Mary and Joseph, as they frantically look for Jesus. They were about to begin their journey back home to Nazareth (a town in northern Israel where Jesus grew up) after the Festival of the Passover.
After they could not find Jesus among friends and relatives, Mary and Joseph returned to Jerusalem and found Jesus after three days in the temple conversing with the learned teachers.
There is very little information about the life of Christ from birth to the age of His ministry around 30 years of age. However, here in Luke 2, it is a crucial point in the life of Jesus as Jesus acknowledges who He is in God. (Have you acknowledged who you are in God?)
Jesus, now a 12-year-old, knows that He is chosen and ordained for a special work. He is, in this story, actually operating within the special relationship he has with the Heavenly Father.
There is then a life lesson for every Christian in the action of Jesus. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” You are ordained! Praise God! Let that sink in for a minute.
As Christians by the grace of God, we are all created unto good works. God has decreed and appointed you to do a special work. Your work may not look like your neighbor’s work, yet the body of Christ is made stronger when those who have been ordained to do a job decide to work together.
By being in the temple and sitting among the teachers asking questions and listening and answering questions, Jesus demonstrated He had made a choice. And even though Mary and Joseph did not understand what He meant, Jesus said quite boldly that He had to “be about his (my) Father’s business…”
As Christians who are ordained, Christians must be about the father’s business. Being about the father’s business means every Christian has a job to do and that work advances the Kingdom of God.
When we look around this world, this state, this city, there is work that must be done. We cannot turn back the hands of time and there is no re-do on life to do what should have been done in the past.
Whether you are a youth or senior citizen, preacher or lay person, there is a job with your name on it.
To follow the example of Jesus, there are principles that He followed:
1. It is good to dwell in the House of the Lord.
2 Timothy 2:15-16: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.”
Truth is truth. The Word of God changes not. Christians must stand for and on the Work of God. If the Word of God says lying is a sin, Christians cannot say it is OK just because of who told the lie.
2. We are called to live what we learn.
2 Timothy 2:19b-21: “The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”
This work is not a sprint. It is a marathon, and Christians must take care of the temple both in the spirit and in the natural. Like an athlete, Christians must have specific rules by which they must play.
3. Learn to recognize that which is not holy.
There are some folks who have gone mad, and they are determined to impose their madness on the People of God. We must be able to recognize not only spiritual warfare, but the manifestation of evil fruit in the life of our society.
2 Timothy gives us examples of what this ungodly behavior looks like: boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited.
How different is the behavior of evil doers from the Christian who is wrapped up in the Fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.
In the completeness of time, Mary and Joseph found Jesus. While it is yet time, let us seek out Jesus the Christ, who has shed his blood and borne the stripes for our salvation and our healing.
Let us seek Him while there is still time.
