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FROM THE PASTOR'S STUDY

Topic: Luke's Perspective of Jesus: Ch. 2 Message Outlines (Include Audio)

Luke 2:40-52 (5)

by Darrel Cline
(darrelcline biblical-thinking.org)

Chapter # 2 Paragraph # 4 Study # 5
October 16, 2005
Lincolnton, N.C.
(Download Audio)

(195)

Thesis:  God will invariably get around to addressing our "loyalty" issues; part two.

Introduction:  As we looked last week into Luke's record of Jesus' behavior at the Passover of His twelfth year, we saw the Father's dissatisfaction with the prayerless life that is lived on the basis of unexplored suppositions. Over the three cycles of exposure to the wisdom-challenging contrasts of four that Jesus had gone through to get to His twelfth year, He had come to a kind of wisdom that stunned those who knew enough about the Word of God to be stunned. As He was being taken through those "paces" by His Father, His earthly parents were apparently drifting along under the general dominion of the pattern of the years. The record before us tells us that they "supposed" (presumed) that they knew how Jesus would "behave". That Jesus, Himself, declared that His behavior was Father-instigated (John 5:19) meant that Joseph and Mary had both lapsed into a kind of blind presumption that they knew what God would do on any given day. And the presumption led to a kind of innocuous prayer life that gave them nothing more than a mollified conscience. And that approach to life left them completely unprepared for Jesus' uncompromising loyalty to His Father.

This morning we are going to look a bit further into what Luke wrote to Theophilus. The "big" thesis of this paragraph is Jesus's qualifications to be God's Redemptive Lamb (the record is focused upon the Passover of Jesus' twelfth year). The "big" issue in "qualifications" is the issue of the "loyalty" of love and faith. No one can be the qualified Redeemer who does not understand that every detail of living must be subjected to the Father's wisdom. Among the issues of the "every detail" thesis is the commitment one has to talking things over with the Father -- something Joseph and Mary had, apparently, not cultivated. Another of the issues of the "every detail" thesis is the commitment one has to doing the Father's will when that will is going to seriously upset the "family". This morning we are going to explore the "loyalty" thesis as it touches upon the "tender spot" of "family". What are we to do when a "family" member is unwilling to be loyal to God and they want to apply the pressure of their own disloyalty to us? Jesus, in this paragraph, as a twelve-year-old, shows us.


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This is article #196.
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