The First Recorded Words of Jesus

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 25, 1882,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said unto Him,
Son, why have You thus dealt with us? Look, Your father and I have
sought You sorrowing. And He said unto them, How is it that you sought
Me? Know you not that I must be about My Father's business?" Luke 2:48,
49.

THESE words are very interesting because they are the first recorded
utterances of our Divine Lord. No doubt He said much that was very
admirable while yet a Child, but the Holy Spirit has not seen fit to
record anything except these two questions, as if to teach us that
childhood should be retiring and modest–a stage of preparation rather
than of observation. We hear little of a Holy Child, for modesty is a
precious part of its character. We ought, therefore, to give all the
more earnest heed to these words because they stand at the very
forefront of our Lord's teaching and are, in some respects, the
announcement of His whole life.

Spoken, as they were, at 12 years of age, we may regard them as the
last words of His childhood and the first words of His youth. He is
just passing away from the time in which He could be called a child
into that in which He becomes, in the eastern clime, where men ripen
faster than here, a young Man, a son of the Law, fit to sit among the
doctors in the temple and to be instructed by them. The early days of
youth are very perilous, for then it is that the rest of life is often
shaped. Happy, indeed, is he who so early begins with God and chooses
as his business the service of the Lord! If all our youth had the same
mind which was in Christ Jesus, what evidence we should have that the
Spirit of God had been working upon our children and was now about to
speak through our youth!

I suppose that these words must have come into Luke's Gospel through
Mary, herself. How, otherwise, could the evangelist have known that,
"they understood not the saying which He spoke unto them," or that
Mary, "kept all these sayings in her heart"? Mary evidently narrates
the words of the Holy Child, words which she had pondered again and
again. She treasured up for us the gems which dropped from Jesus' lips.
She tells us that this saying, simple though it seems to be, was not
fully understood either by herself or by His reputed father, Joseph.
And yet, mark you, we are told, expressly, that Mary, "kept all these
sayings in her heart."

When you cannot put a Truth of God into your understandings, yet lay it
up in your affections. If there is anything in God's Word which is
exceedingly difficult, do not, therefore, reject it, but rather
preserve it for future study. In a father's talk with his child there
must be a good deal that the child cannot fully comprehend. If he is a
wise child, he will seize upon the very thing he does not understand
and treasure it for future use, expecting that light will spring out of
it, by-and-by. Be not among those who say that they will limit their
faith by their understanding! It is probable that you will have a
narrow faith if it is so, or else you will have a wide conceit–for a
proud conceit, alone, can make us believe that we are able to
understand even one-tenth of what God has revealed!

No, I will go further! Although we may understand enough to be saved by
the Truth, yet the full depth of the Truths of God are understood by no
man and if, therefore, we make it the rule to limit our faith by our
understanding, we shall have an extremely limited range of faith! No,
let us treasure up these things! Let us highly prize these diamonds
which can only be cut by diamonds! Let us not put them aside because
they are difficult, for it may be one index of their genuineness that
they are so. We are grateful that the Spirit of God has given us this
first word of our Lord Jesus and we love it none the less because it is
a deep word.

We are not surprised that even as a Child, the Son of God should give
forth mysterious sayings. Do you wonder that there should be much in
Scripture which you cannot comprehend, when even the first words of
Christ, when He is yet a boy, is not understood? No, not understood by
those who had nursed Him, who had lived with Him the whole 12 years
and, consequently, knew His mode of speech and the peculiarities of His
youthful language! If even Mary and Joseph did

not understand, who am I, that I should forever be saying, "I must
understand this or I will not receive it"? No, if we understand it not,
yet will we keep all these sayings in our hearts, for we have this
advantage–that the Holy Spirit is now given, by whose teaching we
understand things which were hidden from the wisest saints of old!

Beloved Friends, how great and full of meaning was this first word
which seems so simple! The longer you look into it, the more you will
be astonished at its fullness. Only superficiality and ignorance will
think it plain! The closest student will be the most astonished with
the profundity of its meaning. Stier, to whom I am much indebted for
thoughts upon this subject, calls this text, "the solitary flower out
of the enclosed garden of thirty years." What fragrance it exhales! It
is a bud, but how lovely! It is not the utterance of His ripe manhood,
but the question of His youth–yet this half-opened bud discovers
delicious sweets and delightful colors worthy of our admiring
meditation.

We might call these questions of Jesus the prophecy of His Character,
and the program of His life. In this, our text, He set before His
mother all that He came into the world to do–revealing His high and
lofty Nature and disclosing His glorious errand! This verse is one of
those which Luther would call His little Bibles, with the whole Gospel
compressed into it. What if I compare it to the perfume of roses, of
which a single drop might suffice to perfume nations and ages? It would
not be possible to overrate these "beautiful words! Wonderful words!
Wonderful words of life!" Who, then, am I that I should venture to take
such a text? I do not take it with any prospect of being able to unveil
all its meaning, but merely to let you see how unfathomable it is.
Emmanuel, God With Us, speaks divinely while yet in His youth! The
words of THE WORD surpass all others! May the Spirit of God open them
to us!

I shall handle the text thus–First, here is the Holy Child's
perception. Secondly, the Holy Child's home. Thirdly, the Holy Child's
occupation, and fourthly, the Holy Child's lesson to any of us who may
be seeking Him.

I. Here we see THE HOLY CHILD'S PERCEPTION. Notice, first, that He
evidently perceived most clearly His high relationship. Mary said,
"Your father and I have sought You sorrowing." The Child Jesus had been
known to call Joseph His father, no doubt, and Joseph was His father in
the common belief of those round about Him. We read in reference to our
Lord even at 30 years of age these words–"Being, as was supposed, the
son of Joseph." The Holy Child does not deny it, but He looks over the
head of Joseph and He brings before His mother's mind another Father.
"Know you not that I must be about My Father's business?"

He does not explain this saying, but it is evident enough that He
remembered, then, the wonderful relationship which existed between His
Humanity and the great God, for He was not conceived after the ordinary
manner, but He had come into the world in such a fashion that it was
said to Mary, "That Holy Thing which shall be born of you shall be
called the Son of God." In a still higher sense and as a Divine Being,
He claimed filial relationship with the Most High, but here, no doubt,
He speaks as a Man, and as a Man He calls God, "My Father," after a
higher fashion than we can do because of His mysterious birth.

You notice that all through His life He never calls God, "Our Father,"
although He bids us do so. We are children of the same family and when
we pray we are to say, "Our Father which are in Heaven," but our Lord
Jesus has still a filial relationship more special than ours and,
therefore, to God He says on His own account, "My Father." He expressly
claims this personal relationship for Himself and I am sure we do not
grudge Him that relationship, for upon it our own relationship to the
Father depends. Because He is the Son of the Highest, therefore we
enter into the filial relationship with the Eternal One according to
our capacity. Jesus the Child perceived that He was the Son of the
Highest and with all the simplicity of childhood He declared the secret
to His mother who already knew how true it was

Brothers and Sisters, this Holy Child's perception should be an
instruction to us. Do you and I often enough and clearly enough
perceive that God is our Father, too? Do we not often act upon the
hypothesis that we are not related to Him, or that we are orphans and
that our Father in Heaven is dead? Do you not catch yourselves,
sometimes, departing from under the influence of the spirit of adoption
and getting into the spirit of independence–and of waywardness and
sin? This will never do! Let us learn from this Blessed One that as He
early perceived His high and eminent relationship to the Father, so
ought we, also, even though we may be nothing more than children in
Grace. We ought to know and to value beyond all expression our sonship
with the great Father who is in Heaven. In truth this Truth of God
should override every other and we should live and move and act under
the consciousness of our being the children of God. O Holy Spirit,
teach us this!

This Holy Child, next, perceived the constraints of this relationship.
He says, "Know you not that I must be about My Father's business?"
Write that, "MUST," in capital letters! It is the first appearing of an
imperious, "must," which swayed the Savior all along. We find it
written of Him that, "He must go through Samaria," and He Himself said,
"I must preach the Kingdom of God." And again to Zaccheus, "I must
abide in your house," and again, "I must work the works of Him that
sent Me." "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of
the elders." "The Son of Man must be lifted up." "It behooved Christ to
suffer." As a Son, He must learn obedience by the things which He
suffered. This First-Born among many brethren must feel all the
drawings of His Sonship–the sacred instincts of the holy Nature and,
therefore, He must be about His Father's business.

Now, I put this to you again, for I need to be practical all along–Do
you and I feel this Divine, "must," as we ought? Is necessity laid upon
us, yes, woe laid upon us unless we serve our Divine Father? Do we ever
feel a hungering and a thirsting after Him so that we must draw near to
Him and must come to His House and approach His feet and must speak
with Him and must hear His voice and must behold Him face to face? We
are not truly subdued to the Son-Spirit unless it is so. But when our
sonship shall have become our master idea, then shall this Divine
necessity be felt by us, also, impelling us to seek our Father's face!
As the sparks fly upward to the central fire, so must we draw near unto
God, our Father and our All.

This Holy Child also perceived the forgetfulness of Mary and Joseph and
He wondered. He sees that His mother and Joseph do not perceive His
lofty birth and the necessities arising out of it–and He wonders. "How
is it," He says, in a childlike way, "How is it that you sought Me?
Know you not that I must be about My Father's business?" He is
astonished that they do not recognize His Sonship; that they do not
perceive that God is His Father! Does not Mary remember the angel's
word at the Annunciation? Did she not know how He was born and remember
His mysterious relationship to God? Of course she did! But she was a
woman and as a woman she had nursed this Child, and she had brought Him
up and, therefore, she began to forget the mystery which surrounded
Him, in the sweet familiarities with which she had been indulged! And
so she has to be reminded of it by her Child's wonder that she should
have forgotten that He was the Son of the Highest.

Have you those perceptions, dear children of God? Do you not often
wonder why men do not know that you are a child of God? Have you
sometimes spoken and they have smiled at you as if you were idiotic or
fanatical, and you have thought to yourself, "What? Do they not know
how a child of God should speak and how a child of God should act?"
"Therefore the world knows us not, because it knew Him not."–

"'Tis no surprising thing,

That we should be unknown!

The Jewish world knew not their King,

God's everlasting Son."

The spiritual man is not understood, He is a wonder unto many. Marvel
not, my Brothers and Sisters, if carnal men do not understand you. Yes,
even your own Brothers and Sisters in Christ–those who love your
Father–have, sometimes, been astonished at you when you have only been
acting simply out of your own renewed heart.

Many Christians get so stilted that they are not like children at home.
They act more like strangers or hired servants in the Father's house
who have bread enough and to spare, but yet never can talk as the
children do. Few let their hearts flow out with that holy fearlessness,
that sweet familiarity which becomes a child of God. Why, if you and I
went about the world under the full possession of this idea, "Beloved,
now are we the sons of God," I have no doubt we would act in such a way
that the mass of professors would be amazed at us and we should be
still more amazed at their amazement and astonished at their
astonishment! If we only acted as our innermost nature would dictate to
us, what manner of persons we would be!

So this Holy Child perceived His glorious Sonship, perceived the
constraints of the Sonship working within Him and perceived that His
parents did not comprehend His feelings. The Child Jesus began, also,
to perceive that He, personally, had a work to do and so He said, "Know
you not that I must be about My Father's business?" He had been 12
years silent, but now the shadow of the Cross began to fall upon Him
and He felt a little of the burden of His lifework. He perceives that
He has not come here merely to work in a carpenter's shop, or to be a
peasant child at Nazareth. He has come here to vindicate the honor of
God, to redeem His people, to save them from their sins and to lead an
army of blood-

washed ones up to the Throne of the great Father above and, therefore,
He declares that He has a higher occupation than Mary and Joseph can
understand.

Yet He must go back to the home at Nazareth and, for 18 years He must
do His Father's business by, as far as we read, doing nothing in the
way of public ministry! He must do His Father's business by hearing the
Father, in secret, so that when He comes out, He may say to His
disciples, "All things which I have heard of My Father I have made
known unto you." So great a lesson had He to teach that He must spend
another 18 years in learning it fully and God must open His ears and
awaken Him morning by morning to hear as an instructed one, that
afterwards He may come forth the Teacher of Israel, the Lord and Master
of Apostles and evangelists!

Beloved, I come back to the practical point again. Have you, with your
sonship, obtained a vivid perception of your call and your work? You
have not redemption set before you to accomplish, but you have to make
known that redemption far and wide! As God has given to Christ power
over all flesh that He may give eternal life to as many as the Father
has given Him, so has Jesus given you power over such-and-such
flesh–and there are some in this world who never will receive eternal
life except through you! It is appointed that from your lips they shall
hear the Gospel! It is ordained in the Divine decree that through your
instrumentality they shall be brought into the Kingdom of God! It is
time that you and I, who perhaps have reached 30, 40, 50 or 60 years,
should now bestir ourselves and say, "Know you not that I must be up
and doing my Father's business?"

David had to wait till he heard the sound of a going in the tops of the
mulberry trees–do you not hear the sound of a going now? Are there not
signs and indications that you must work the will of Him that sent you
and must finish His work? The night comes wherein no man can work. Up,
then, you children of God, and, following the Holy Child Jesus, begin
to ask this question–"Know you not that I must be about my Father's
business?" These were the perceptions of this Holy Child. Oh that they
may come strong upon us in our own smaller way! May we perceive that we
are born of God! May we perceive the Spirit within us whereby we cry,
"Abba, Father!" May we have a wonderment that others do not understand
the calls and urgencies of our condition and may we have such a sense
of our high calling as to proceed at once to fulfill it as God, the
Holy Spirit, shall help us!

II. We shall now think of THE HOLY CHILD'S HOME. Here I am obliged to
amend our version and I am certain that the correction is, itself,
correct. I am all the more strengthened in this opinion because the
Revised Version endorses the ALTERATION. This is how they read
it–"Know you not that I must be in My Father's house?" That may not be
verbally exact, but it is the true sense. It should run thus, "Know you
not that I must be in My Father's?" There is no word for "house," But
in almost all languages, "house," is understood. You know how we
commonly say to one another, "I am going down to my father's," or, "I
shall spend the evening at my brother's." Everybody knows that we mean
"house," and that is just how the Greek, here, runs. "Know you not that
I must be in My Father's?" It means, "house."

That must be the first and primary meaning of it. The text says nothing
of business, unless we understand it to be included as a matter of
course, since we may be sure that Jesus would not be idle in His
Father's, for He said, "My Father works and I work." Observe that the
question of Mary was, "Why have You thus dealt with us? Behold Your
father and I have sought You sorrowing." The answer is, "Know you not
that I must be in My Father's house?" That is plainly a complete answer
and therein strikes you as more natural than a reference to business.
If Jesus had only said, "Know you not that I must be about My Father's
business?" it would not have been any guide to them as to where He
would be, because all His life He was about His Father's business.

But He was not always in the Temple. He was about His Father's business
when He sat by the well and talked to the woman of Samaria. And He was
about His Father's business when He trod the waves of the sea of
Galilee. He might be anywhere and yet be about His Father's
business–but the natural answer to the question was, "How is it that
you sought Me? Know you not that I must be in My Father's house?" Let
us read the passage thus, and see the child's home. Where should Jesus
be but in His Father's dwelling place? I doubt not that with desire He
had desired to eat that Passover when He should get to be 12 years old
and be old enough to go up to His Father's house! He looked upon the
Temple as being, for the time, the residence of God where He manifested
Himself in an unusual degree–and so this Holy Child looked upon those
walls and courts with delight as His Father's house.

It seemed most natural to Him that when He reached the place He should
stay there. He had never really been at home before. Nazareth was the
place where He was brought up, but Jerusalem's Temple was on earth His
true home. I

picture to my mind how that blessed Child loved the place where His
Father was worshipped! He would stand and gaze on the lambs and the
bullocks that were slain in sacrifice, understanding much more about
them, though a Child, than you or I do, though we are grown up. It must
have been all wonderland to Him as a Child–I speak not of Him as God–
it must have been all marvelous to Him and deeply interesting. When the
Psalms went up, how He sang them with His sweet youthful voice! He said
within Himself, "I must sing praises unto My Father." When the solemn
prayers were uttered and He heard them, there were none so devout as He
as He heard the people worship His Father in Heaven!

It is touching to think of Him, in His Father's palace–He was greater
than the Temple and yet a youth! It was His Father's house in a special
sense because in the Temple did everything speak of God's Glory and
everything there was meant for God's worship. It was His Father's
house, too, in the sense that there His Father's work went on. If it
had not been for the sin which had turned aside the Rabbis and the
priests from the faithful following of God, the Temple was the place
out of which God's power went forth. "Out of Zion, the perfection of
beauty, God has shined." There, too, His Father's Truth was proclaimed
and His ordinances were celebrated. The Temple was the center of the
great Husbandman's farm–it was the homestead from which all the
workers went forth to till the fields of Christ's own Father!

It was there, especially, to Him that His Father's name was taught. He
speedily made His way away from the place of sacrifice to that of
teaching–"sacrifice and offering You did not desire"–but away He went
to the doctors. This thoughtful, spiritual Child wanted to know about
everything sacred and so He took His place among the learners–and the
teachers were astonished when this new, "Child of the Law," put to them
questions which showed that He must have thought vastly more than any
other person in the Temple! When these enquiries were answered, they
were but the predecessors of a whole army of other questions, for He
wanted to know more! They were amazed that such enquiries should come
from a youthful mind. In return they put questions to the youth and He
answered well, for He had a remarkable mind and His mother had taught
Him the precious Word of God so that He had the Law and the Prophets at
His fingertips. No doubt He quoted, in His answers, the sayings of
Isaiah or of Jeremiah and utterly astounded the doctors as they
perceived that He saw deep into the Holy Words.

Now, to be practical again, dear Friends, where should be our home as
God's children but in our Father's house? Do you think we have enough
of the child spirit about us to feel this? "Know you not that I must be
in my Father's house?" That house is His Church. Among the faithful He
dwells. The saints of God are built together for a habitation of God
through the Spirit. Let me be often among His people, for I must be in
my Father's house! Ought I not, must I not, shall I not, if I am,
indeed, a child of God, love to be where God is worshipped? Will not
the hymns of God's house charm me? Will not the prayers of God's people
delight me? Shall I not be eager to be at the Prayer Meetings of the
saints? Shall I not rejoice to join in their praise? Will not my soul
be delighted to be at the Table of communion and everywhere else where
God has appointed to be worshipped by His saints?

Shall I not love every place where God's work is going on? If I hear
the Gospel preached, shall I not say, "Let me be there"? If there is
tract distribution from house to house, shall I not say, "I, too, will
take a district if I can"? If there is Sunday School work, shall I not
cry, "Let me have a class according to my ability! Let me take a share
in this holy enterprise"? "Know you not that I must be at my Father's?
In my Father's work and in my Father's house engaged in all my Father's
concerns?" Should not this compulsion, blessed and sweet and
irresistible, continually be upon us? I must be where God is! If I am
not with His people because I am detained by sickness, yet I must be in
my Father's house! There are many mansions in that great house on earth
as well as in Heaven–and we can be with God in the streets and in His
house when working in the fields! But we must be in our Father's
house–we cannot bear to be away from God. Loss of communion is loss of
peace, loss of delight.

Oh, crave fellowship with God! Be covetous of it! Love everything that
keeps you init! Hate everything that leads you from it! Rise early to
commune with God, before the smoke of earth obscures the face of
Heaven. Sit up late to commune with God while dews are falling all
around. If you can do nothing else, deny yourself rest and wake in the
night to commune with God your Father! Shall not a child love to speak
with his Father and hear his Father speak to him? It must be so! It
will be so! It cannot help being so with you if you feel the
child-spirit strong within you as our blessed Lord and Master did when
but 12 years of age!

III. Consider, thirdly, THE HOLY CHILD'S OCCUPATION. Although I object
to its being the correct reading,

"Know you not that I must be about My Father's business?"–yet we know
that this Holy Child would not be in His

Father's house as an idler. He would be sure to be in the Father's
house in the sense of being one of the workers in it. Our Father's
house is a business house and, therefore, we must be in our Father's
business when we are at our Father's! That is the word. Though the
translation which mentions business may be a questionable one, yet it
is abundantly lawful to say that this Holy Child's occupation was to be
about His Father's matters.

What, then, did He do? First, He spent His time in learning and
enquiring. "How I pant to be doing good" says some young man. You are
right, but you must not be impatient. Go among the teachers and learn a
bit. You cannot teach yet, for you do not know–go and learn before you
think of teaching! Hot spirits think that they are not serving God when
they are learning, but in this they err. Beloved, Mary at Jesus' feet
was commended rather than Martha, cumbered with much service! "But,"
says one, "we ought not to be always hearing sermons." No, I do not
know that any of you are. "We ought to get to work at once," cries
another! Certainly you ought, after you have first learned what the
work is! If everybody that is converted begins to teach, we shall soon
have a mess of heresies and many raw and undigested dogmas taught which
will rather do damage than good!

Run, messenger, run! The King's business requires haste! No, rather
pause a little. Have you any tidings to tell? First learn your message
and then run as fast as you please. There must be time for learning the
message. If our blessed Lord waited 30 years, He is an example to eager
persons who can scarcely wait 30 minutes! See how fast light things
will travel! How eager are those to speak who know nothing! How swift
to speak what they do not know and to testify what they have never
seen! This comes not of wisdom, but is the untimely fruit of folly. I
have heard it said that Dissenters do not go to their chapels for
worship, but for hearing sermons. It is not true! But if it were, I beg
to say that hearing sermons may be one of the most God-pleasing forms
of worship out of Heaven, for in hearing the Gospel as it should be
heard, every sacred passion is brought into play and every power of our
renewed manhood is made to bow before the Majesty on high!

Faith by embracing the Promise, love by rejoicing in it, hope by
expecting its fulfillment–all are worship when the theme is some
gracious Word of the Most High! Thought, memory, understanding, emotion
are all exercised. I do not know that I have ever worshipped God better
than when I have heard a humble, simple-minded man tell out the story
of the Cross and of his own conversion. With the tears running down my
eyes I have heard the Gospel and adored the living God who has sent it
among men! I have so seldom the privilege of hearing a sermon that when
I do, it occasions an intense delight which I can scarcely describe–I
then draw nearer to God than in any other exercise! I suppose it is so
with you–at any rate, it would be so if the preaching were what it
ought to be. True preaching begets worship.

This Holy Child was about His Father's business when He was simply
asking questions and learning of the appointed teachers. In fact, we
need to do more of this kind of business. We are meager, lean and weak,
because we are frothing at the mouth with talking too much before we
have drank in the Truth of God into our inmost souls. Remember, the
good matter cannot come out of you if it has never gone into you–and
if you have no time for receiving instruction, the matter which comes
out of you will be of little worth. This Holy Child is about His
Father's business, for He is engrossed in it. His whole heart is in the
hearing and asking questions. There is a force, to my mind, in the
Greek, which is lost in the translation, which drags in the word,
"about." There is nothing parallel to it in the Greek, which is, "Know
you not that I must be in my Father's?" The way to worship God is to
get heartily into it. "Blessed is the man whose strength is in You; in
whose heart are Your ways."

We say, sometimes, when preaching, "I felt that I got fairly into the
subject," and you, yourselves, know when the preacher is really getting
into it. Often he is paddling about on the shore of his text and
possibly he wades into it up to his ankles. But, oh, when he plunges
into the "rivers to swim in," then you have grand times! When the
precious Truth of God has fairly carried him off his feet, you take a
header, too, and swim likewise. Our Lord, when He went into the Temple,
became engrossed with its worship and teaching–and that was His answer
to Mary! He did as good as say, "Know you not that I was absorbed in My
Father's? I did not know you were gone. I forgot all about you. Know
you not that My soul was in My Father's? I was so taken up with what I
was learning from the doctors and what I was seeing in the Temple that
I could not but remain. Did you not know that? Did you not also become
absorbed?"

He seems to think they might have been as interested as He and they
would have been if they bad borne the same relation to God as He did!
It is natural that we should become engrossed in our worship. I should
not wonder if, sometimes, we were a little rude to those who sat next
to us, or moved about a little more than etiquette would suggest; or
vented

our feelings in involuntary expressions and became troublesome to those
next us in the pews, so that they said, "What can be the matter with
these people?" Friends, we have got into the holy engagement and we
cannot quite govern ourselves! And we feel as if we could say to you,
"Know you not that I must be in my Father's work, worship and Truth?"
We cannot be half-hearted! We are too happy for that. We are carried
clean away. Do you not know that we cannot be proper and calm, for we
must be all taken up with our holy service"?

Besides, the Holy Child declares that He was under a necessity to be in
it. "Know you not that I must be in My Father's?" He could not help
Himself! Christ could never be a half-hearted pupil or a lukewarm
worshipper. It was not possible for Him to be that! He must get
absorbed in it; drawn right into the blessed whirlpool–He must be lost
in it and give His whole thought and attention to it–and He tells His
mother so. "Know you not that I must be about My Father's business?"
Other things did not interest the Holy Child–but this thing absorbed
Him. You know the story of Alexander, that when the Persian ambassadors
came to his father's court, little Alexander asked them many questions,
but they were not at all such as boys generally think of.

He did not ask them to describe to him the throne of ivory, nor the
hanging gardens of Babylon, nor anything as to the gorgeous apparel of
the king. He asked what weapons the Persians used in battle; in what
form they marched and how far it was to their country, for the boy
Alexander felt the man Alexander within him and he had presentiments
that he was the man who would conquer Persia and show them another way
of fighting that would make them turn their backs before him! It is a
singular parallel to the case of the Child, Jesus, who is taken up with
nothing but what is His Father's because it was for Him to do His
Father's work and to live for His Father's Glory–and to execute His
Father's purpose even to the last.

IV. Let us, lastly, learn THIS HOLY CHILD'S SPECIAL LESSON TO THOSE OF
US WHO ARE SEEKERS. Do I address any children of God who have lost
sight of Christ? It does happen at times that we miss the Holy Child
and it happens most often when we are happy in company and so are taken
off from Him. Mary and Joseph were, no doubt, delighted with the
festival and so they forgot Jesus. You and I, when in God's house, may
forget the Lord of the House. Did you ever lose Him at His own Table?
Did you ever lose Him while engaged in His work? Have you ever missed
Him even while you were busy with holy things? When you do, perhaps you
will say to Him, "Lord, I have sought You long; I have been among Your
kinsfolk; I have been to dear saints of God and spoken to them and have
said, 'Have you seen Him whom my soul loves, for I have lost Him?'"

His answer is, "Why have you sought Me?" He is not lost to those who
long for Him! Cannot you trust Him when He is away? He is all right
even when you see Him not! Though He does not always smile, He loves us
to the end. If you are not walking in the light of His Countenance, yet
you are living in the love of His heart. Jesus sees you when you do not
see Him–He has reasons for hiding Himself which are founded in wisdom.
Mark, dearly beloved ones, if you and I need to find our Lord, we know
where He is. Do we not? He is at His Father's. Let us go unto His
Father's–let us go to our Father and His Father and let us speak with
God and ask Him where Jesus is if we have lost His company. We may be
sure that He is in His Father's work. We are sure of that.

Let us go to work for Him again. Do not let us say, "I feel so dull I
cannot pray." Now is the time in which we must pray. "But I do not feel
as if I could praise Him." Now is the time when you must praise Him and
the praise will come while you are praising. At times we have no heart
for holy exercises and the devil says, "Do not go." My dear Friend, be
sure to go up to the assembly–go to get the heart for going! Have you
begun not to care about Prayer Meetings? Are you going to stay away
till you do care about them? Then you will die in indifference! Come
and have another turn at them. Those who are most at them, love them
best. Does Satan say, with regard to private prayer, "You have not the
spirit of prayer. You must not pray"? Tell the devil you are going to
pray for the spirit of prayer and that you will plead till you get it!
It is a sign of sickness when you cannot pray and surely, then, you
should go to the Physician.

If there is ever a time when a man should pray more than usual, it is
when he feels dead and cold in the holy engagement–go and seek Jesus
at the Father's and seek Him in the Father's work–and those of you who
have lost communion with Him will find it again. When you take the
Sunday school class, again, that you left because you said you had had
enough of it. When you go again and preach at the street corner–you
have not done that lately. When you begin, again, to be active in the
Lord's service, then you will again meet with this Blessed One who is
about His Father's business, whether you are or not!

One more word and that is to sinners who are seeking Christ. I would
not say a word to discourage any who are seeking Jesus, but I should
like to get them far beyond the stage of seeking. Perhaps the Holy
Spirit will help them to do so if I read Christ's words to them. "How
is it that you sought ME?" Dear, dear! That is, indeed, a turning of
things upside down! Our Lord Jesus has come into the world to seek and
to save the lost–is it not an odd thing when those who are lost get to
seeking Him? That is a reversal of all order! "How is it," He says,
"that you sought Me?" Now, if I, this morning, am a poor, lost sinner
and can honestly say I am seeking Christ, there must be some blunder
somewhere! How can this be? How shall I make heads or tails of it? Here
is a sheep seeking the shepherd! A lost piece of silver seeking its
owner! How can this be?

It will all come right if you will just think of this–first, that
Jesus Christ is not far away. He is in the Father's house. "Where is
the Father's house?" Why, all around us! The great Father's house
covers the whole world and all the stars! He lives everywhere! He
dwells not in temples made with hands, like this Tabernacle, or yon
cathedral–the Lord God is outside in the fields, in the
streets–wherever you seek Him. Say not, Who shall climb to Heaven to
find, Him, or dive into the deeps to bring Him up? "The Word is near
you." Here is Christ in the midst of us! What are you looking for, man?
Are you seeking for some spirit of the night, or specter of darkness?
Jesus is near! Believe in Him!

Remember another thing, that Christ must be about His Father's
business. And what is His Father's business? Why, to save sinners! This
is His great Father's delight. He is glad to bring His prodigals home.
Are you seeking Jesus as if He could not be found, as if it were hard
to make Him hear and difficult to win His help? Why, He is busy in
saving sinners! Jesus sits on Zion's hill–He still receives poor
sinners! Be encouraged and do not go about among your kinsfolk seeking
Him, nor with bitter tears and cries of despair look for Him as if He
were hiding from you! He is not far from any one of us. He stands
before you and He bids you trust Him! Look to Him and be saved! Do you
look? You are saved! Go on your way rejoicing! God bless you. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Luke25-52. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
HYMN BOOK"–251, 260, 764.
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Love and I' A Mystery

A Sermon