And he's 12 years old. But it says even at that age, he is still obedient to his parents. It says he is subservient to them, even though he is doing the right thing. He's about his father's business. So there's really three phases to the father's business. There's the past, where we see Jesus right there. That's already happened. We should know what he's doing currently right now, and we know the future. So look at the three different parts of the father's business today. If you want to say about my father's business, just as a title or something like that. So the first one we hear is how Jesus did his father's business. What his past, his role that was completed here. We see him at the beginning of his life. He's already perfect. He's already showing us his perfection. He's already showing that he was above us. He's already showing that he is God. Even at this young age, he's perfect. Even though he says, I'm about my father's business, and you might read it and think he's being kind of a smart aleck to his parents, but he's perfect. So we know he didn't sin. And he follows his parents, and he is subservient to them. He is obedient to them. And Ephesians chapter 6, it says, Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. The first command to you in your life is to obey your parents. If you're a child, and you get saved, the first thing, the first way for you to serve the Lord is to be obedient to your parents. It says it's the first commandment with promise, that your days may be long on the earth. Jesus is demonstrating even from the time he's 12 here, he's obedient. He's doing the Lord's will. So how he did his father's business, what was it that he completed here? By coming to earth and living a human life. This is the past, we know this already happened. He has come, he has paid for our sins, but this is the first way he did it. He came and he lived as a human. Now this is the only life that I have known, but I can't imagine what Jesus left to come here. His willingness to leave heaven and splendor up there to come here and live as us. To live as the creation. To live as what he had created. He chose to do that. He was willing to do that. And his perfect life. So we say he chose to come here and live as a human and give us the example of his perfect life. I read it said this way, his life is distinguished by patience, self-denial, humility, boldness, spirituality, and prayerfulness. He led the perfect Christian life as a human, to give us an example, to show us the level that God expected, the level that we couldn't get to, the law that we could not complete. or one of my first Bible college classes, I had no idea what we were talking about. I memorized my class notes because I didn't understand. So we did essay questions and I was just like, I don't understand this. I'm gonna memorize everything. And that's how I passed my tests. And I remember one of the last class sessions, my professor said, and now we see that the Old Testament points to the need for Jesus in the New Testament. And I was like, why didn't you say that at the beginning of the class? And everything would have made a lot more sense. I just didn't understand. And so we see Jesus here, he is completing that. All of that law, all of that example of the Old Testament where man tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails that we cannot complete the law. And in Romans 7, Paul writes, who will save me from the body of this death? How can I escape this fate? I cannot meet this standard. It was Jesus when he came and lived this perfect life. So his perfect life had two purposes. First, it's justifying righteousness for believers. He made the way for us. He re-established our relationship with God. The second thing is, it's the perfect pattern for us to aspire to. We're never going to reach that. We're not going to reach that. But we look at that and say, what does it look like? What does the perfect Christian life look like? You may think that sometimes. I'm trying to do this, but I don't know what the pattern is supposed to look like. It's Jesus. He is the Word made flesh. He is the perfect example of obedience to God and keeping His commandments. That's one of the reasons that He came. Obviously He came to pay for our sins, but to show us this is the standard. This is what God wants from us. This is the level we should try to get to. We're not going to get there, but that's what we should try. And the last thing here, how he did, we're still talking about the past of the father's business, what he did while he was here. And the last thing is works, suffering, and death as a redeemer. Hebrews 10.10, by the which will we are redeemed. By the witch, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 1 Peter 3 says, For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. So we know that one way he was about the Father's business, one way he completed it already, one phase is he came as the Messiah and he died. He came and met this standard that we could not meet from the Old Testament. He came and met God's standard that we could not achieve for us, and set the example. So then what is He doing right now? We move to the present phase. Right now, how is Jesus about the Father's business? What is He doing? He's the new High Priest, blessing the people, interceding for the believers. The book of Hebrews tells us all about Christ as the new High Priest. All about that relationship that we now have with Him. What is His role? He's interceding for believers, Romans 8, 33 and 34. So Jesus didn't come down, meet God's standard, die, go back up to heaven, and now He's passive. He's still fighting for us. He's still interceding. He's still pleading our case. He is still sitting as the connection for us. He is still up there fulfilling the role as the Savior. He came down and paid the cost. He paid the penalty. But he is still sitting up there as our way to God. He is still interceding for us. He is still up there. He's the mediator. So not only is he the intercessor, he's a mediator. He's the only one. He is our access to God. He is the one who reconnected, reestablished our relationship with God. 1 Timothy 2, 5, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. We know he has a role as a counselor and advocate. I've counseled soldiers. the best of my abilities, but sometimes I don't have the answers. Sometimes I can't empathize with them, but I can take them to the scriptures and try. An advocate, that's kind of a weird word. In the army we have a victim advocate. There have been times soldiers have come to me with issues of abuse, or harassment, or this and that, whatever. I'm bound by UCMJ, I can't tell that. but I'll go with him like, look, let me take you to the advocate and we'll talk through this together. And it's not just that, you know, I wanna give them biblical truth. Now the victim advocate, the resources army has, they're not gonna be doing that. They're gonna get them into a substance abuse program or some kind of therapy. But the more people we have checking on them, it's gonna be the better. So I can't tell your problems for you, but I'll go with you. And then that advocate is going to give them the resources and they're going to check on them and they're going to fight for them and they're going to try to get them what they need. So Lord, and he's doing all of these roles, you know, kind of together, it's all rolling together, but he is your advocate. He's not passive now. He's not just sitting by the right hand of the father doing nothing. He is advocating for you, for me. He's giving us the help that we need. He is our counselor. He cares about what we're going through. He wants to give you that help. And along with that idea, one way I read Jesus is like the captain of our salvation. So what does that mean? Well, a rank of captain in the army would be you're leading in battle. It's not a passive role. Once you get up higher in the ranks, it might be a little more of a desk job. But if you're a captain, you're still out with the soldiers. You're still leading them. As Jesus as our Savior, He's not passive. He's not a passive role. He is active in leading us. He's leading us. General Patton said, there's no good decision ever made from a swivel chair. Jesus is not passive. He's not just sitting there. He is helping us. And the last one here, just kind of rolling that all together. How does He help us? He has all these roles. He's fulfilling all these things right now. He's sitting on the right hand of the Father, interceding for us. How do you get the help? The Holy Spirit. He helps his people by the Holy Spirit. In John 14, John 15, and John 16, Jesus references sending the Comforter. In chapter 14, he says, the Father will send the Comforter in my name. In chapter 15, he says, but when the Comforter has come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. And in chapter 16, he again says, I will send the Comforter. In John 14, 18, Jesus says, I will not leave you. I will come to you. So it seems like, you know, there's a little bit of authority of the Holy Spirit, but he's telling you, I am going to be with you. I'm gonna reach you. I'm going to help you. I'm going to send the comforter. So even now, as he is in heaven, he is not passive. He is sending the comforter. It is God. He is helping you. All of those roles rolled up together, you have to have the way clear to the Holy Spirit. If you want Jesus to fulfill all of these roles in your life right now, this is what he's doing right now, the way must be clear. You can't have unrepentant sin in your heart. You can't have bitterness. You can't have issues with your brothers and sisters in Christ. You can't be holding things against people. You have to have the way clear for Jesus. He wants to, he's advocating, he's your intercessor, all of these things, he's doing this for you. You have to make the way clear for him to get to you. You have to have that way clear. So that's what he's currently doing. And then the third thing here, how Jesus will do his father's business. What is still left for him to fulfill? What is there still left in the future? He's right now advocating for us, fighting for us. He's still saving people. What is the future? We know the big one, he's going to conquer Satan and lead the captives free. Eventually, you know, the end of the Bible, the things that are going to come to pass in Revelation, his goals, his final role that he's going to have, he will judge the world in righteousness. When he comes back and establishes the New Jerusalem, he will be the only perfect king the world has ever had. We've had good kings. I think King David would probably be one of the best kings that we ever had. Mike and I went and watched the Sight and Sound. And they highlighted the account with Uriah and everything. David was a good king, but he had some faults. He had some issues. Jesus won't, ever. The same perfection that he shows as a 12-year-old, the same perfection that he showed on the cross, the same perfection that he has in the heavens right now, is the same perfection that he will judge the world with when he's the king. The perfect monarch. There is no change. There is no change in God. Jesus will be the only perfect, sinless king in history. Jesus is perfectly consistent. It's an idea that I would like to have as a human, but I don't. I am not consistent every day. I'm gonna be in a good mood one day, and I'll be nice to you. And then Rosie's gonna scream all night, and I'm not gonna be nice to you the next day. I'm gonna be inconsistent. Jesus is not. And all those roles that we talked about as a counselor and this and that, whatever, one of the amazing things about God is all of us in here can talk to him at the same time, and he gives us equal attention. If Susanna and Rosie are talking to me, I can't give them equal attention. I can't. I might try to, but I'm gonna get maybe half of what they're telling me. We can all seek Him earnestly with huge problems at the same time and get equal help. He is not limited. He's perfect and He is perfectly consistent. Now, someone could see this, or people see this, and a common question that you would get is, if Jesus can come back and fix all of these problems, why hasn't he yet? There's one answer in the Bible. I preached out of this chapter once, and I said, there's one answer, and here it is. And then I thought, I really hope that's the only answer. And then I heard Scott Polly say it's the only answer, and I was like, I was right. So you don't trust me, you trust him. In 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 9 and 10. So what does that mean? It says that the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. He has promised to return and fix things. He has not left us. that will be fulfilled. So what's keeping him from doing it then? Long suffering, mercy. If someone comes to you and they're unsaved and they say, well, if God can fix it, why hasn't he fixed it yet? Because he loves you and he's merciful to you. And he wants you to get saved. And once he comes back, your chance is over. Once he comes back and fixes everything, there's no more chance for mercy. So until that happens, God is merciful to you because he wants everyone to be saved. So Jesus will complete the promises of the prophecy and the promises of God. God has promised it, he will keep it, and it will be fulfilled with Jesus. So we've talked about all this, you say, that's good, I agree, what does this have to do with me tomorrow when I go to work? All these things about Jesus are good. How does this affect me when I go to school tomorrow? When I go to work tomorrow? When I see that really belligerent coworker that I don't like? What does all of this have to do with me? We had a friend come over recently and he's a little bit older than me, but he was a coal miner and he got hurt really bad. And he was down for a while, but it was a really good conversation he had with me about just how the Lord took care of him. And so he was out of work like 90 days or so, and they never struggled financially, and he's the breadwinner, he's a coal miner, he's an electrician, underground every day, you know, tough man. And he just talked about before that happened, it was the lowest point he'd ever had. He said he was hating life every day, all this stuff, and then he has to have back surgery, he had to teach himself to walk again, he was walking around his house with a walker. And now he's perfectly fine. He's going to go back to work. And he said, I hate the thought of going back to work. But he said, this is the difference now. He said, before this happened, he said, I had no joy in my life at all. He saved. But he said, I hate it every day. I hate my job. I don't want to go back. I hate everything about this situation. I don't want to go back to this job. But he said, I didn't have any joy of the Lord. This guy was safe, but I wasn't feeling that joy anymore. Because I was so wrapped up in everything that I hated. The situation that I hated. And so, there's three quick points here, application, along with this illustration. This will be really quick. Three points. So, just the application, and it's pretty simple. I pulled it right out of my study Bible, like it got me for Christmas here. The people of God should be about the Father's business. These three things here. should motivate us. We should be about the Father's business. The first way, we talked about what Jesus has already done. He's already paid for your sins. So if you are unsaved, get saved. If you are unsaved, if you're listening to this and you are unsaved, get saved. That's the first step. You say, this Jesus guy sounds pretty good. He did all this stuff. He has all these roles that He can fill for me. I can get all this help from Him. You have to be saved first. You've been developed by the Holy Spirit, and that's what He's going to send you the help with. So that's the first thing. If you're already saved, then we live like it. The second thing, believers should be leaning into the limitless resource of a perfect Christ. We have this mediator in the heavens sitting up there who's perfect. And He loves you perfectly. And He wants to give you the perfect help that you need in this moment. Lean into that, make the way clear. Christ is on our side and he has an active role in our spiritual life and strengths. You wanna be spiritually strong, you want your spiritual life to be strong, then go to the one who's gonna give you that. Go to the one who establishes that. It's not me, it's Jesus. I'll point you to him, go to him, get help from him. And the third thing here, that future goal, that future role that Jesus has when he's gonna come back and fix everything. We're on the winning side. We're on the winning side of that. So we should live in that way. And my friend was talking about this and the joy of his salvation and going back to work and he just said, I was so down and I hated life so much. And he said, just the way that God had shown himself in my life. He's like, I've never had that before. I've never had him show up like that. So if you're going through a hard spot, if you're going through a trial, if there's something that you can't handle, Jesus will show up. He'll show up. He's promised, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. We're on the winning side. We have all of these roles that Jesus is fulfilling for us. You lean into that. So in conclusion, just take the truth of the Father's business displayed in Christ and run with it. We go into the new year with a determination, not just willpower. You have this determination backed by the Holy Spirit, the power of God. That's really all I have for you this evening. We have all of these resources. We have Christ at our back. He wants you to be successful. He wants to help you. He wants you to have comfort. Make the way clear for him. Lean into your relationship with him and run with it. I pray. God, we thank you for this day. God, we thank you for your word, God, and just the ability we have to look at it for ourselves. God, we thank you for Jesus, Lord, and especially this season. God, in his role that he came down and took on a human form, Lord, and died for our sins. Lord, he's up there now as a mediator. God, just help us to continually lean into that, God, and keep the way clear that we can get help from you. In your name we pray, amen. you