We ran out of time last week and did not get this point finished so I will seek to do that today. We are really still introducing the topic of the new series of studies about the gospel record of the Saviour meeting boys and girls. I have been emphasising the wonderful truth that the Lord Jesus understands girls and boys for he came into this world as a baby born to Mary and grew up and passed through the experiences common to children, with the exception of sin.
Listen to these words: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,” Hebrews 4:15.
That verse suggests a study of another kind - the trials the Saviour faced and which we face as well. He knew sorrow, disappointment in others, abuse and physical cruelty. Indeed, his sufferings far exceeding anything we may face. Therefore He understands our problems and difficulties.
Last week we considered how that we learned from Matt 13:54-56, that the neighbours who knew the Lord Jesus as He grew up amongst them, had not noticed anything unusual about Him. “They were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?” Matthew 13:54. They had known Him, played with Him, talked to Him but had failed to NOTICE that He was wonderfully different from them.
We also noted, however, that His mother Mary had noticed that he was an unusual child. Luke 2:18-19, 50-51.
We go a little further in this matter today. We will briefly consider what the Lord Jesus said in Luke 2:49. “How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”
It should be noted that from His earliest days the Lord Jesus was aware of His link with His Father.
He speaks here of being about His Father’s business. The world ‘about’ means ‘to be involved in’.
1. We cannot be linked to our heavenly Father as was the Lord Jesus, for He was equal to the Father in power and glory, He was the Second Person of the Godhead. The Shorter Catechism, question 6, asks: “How many persons are there in the Godhead?”
The answer is: “There are three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.”
2. However, we become children of God when we are born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:26. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin (live to continually sin); for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God,” 1 John 3:9. Thus you can know a true Christian by their holy life and their avoidance of sin - in thought, word or deed.
3. We show that we are the children of God by loving and caring for all His children. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him,” 1 John 5:1. As well as our enemies of course, Matthew 5:44.