Hi, I’m Jim Mark Janowitz. I live in Midlothian, Virginia—which is Upper and Lower Lothian.
Lance Lambert always likes to talk about being from Jewish stock in Israel. I always refer to the fact that I’m really Californian.
While I’m fiddling with this, Dana uses the guitar and sings. I can’t sing or play the guitar, so I fiddle with my computer.
Well, while we’re getting this ready, really, I don’t have to speak today because John gave my message. So you can talk to him about it.
Let’s go ahead and open the Scriptures to Luke 2 and read what John read yesterday, starting with verse 41.
His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.
And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.
And when they had finished the days, as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and His mother did not know it.
But supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day’s journey, and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances.
So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking Him.
Now so it was, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.
And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.
So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.”
And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”
But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them.
Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them. But His mother kept all these things in her heart.
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God.
Amen. Let’s pray.
Father, we do want to thank You this morning for bringing us to Yourself. Lord, we come because we want to know You. We want to be drawn to You, and only You can draw us.
There is nothing that I can say, Lord, that can be of any help unless You breathe into it some kind of life that will draw. Lord, only You can draw.
So we ask that Your Holy Spirit would come down and fill our hearts, open our minds, and speak to us individually and personally. Draw us to Yourself.
Lord, we want to be like Jesus in the sense that we want to be with You, know You, and be about Your business. Help us to see how much You have done for us, so that we are not discouraged or thinking, “I can never do this.”
Lord, show us Your greatness and Your grace. Let us know again that You are full of grace and truth. We ask that You show us this in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
This morning, this is the verse from the theme of the conference. This is the Darby Translation. You can notice that it is not the translation I used, but here it is:
“Why is it that ye have sought Me? Did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in My Father’s business?”
Now, we can really get hold of this thing and take it by the horns. Our generation is very task-oriented. We can look at this and say, “All right, here is a verse. Okay? A task-oriented verse, don’t you think?”
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
So all we want to do is say, “Okay, Lord, just show me what to do. You said we are to be about Your business; show me what to do.”
But this is not where it starts. That is what we want to do—we want to begin with, “Where does it start? How do we go about starting this?”
We have to start with the question that Jesus asked. It is not, “Why have you sought Me?” The question He asked His parents is, “Did you not know?”
John opened with this yesterday: “Did you not know?” In looking at this and considering the theme for this week, we want to look at that question today: Did you not know?
It is not the “know” that you think it is. When we think of knowing, we think of knowing facts.
As a schoolteacher—I teach history—kids are always thinking that you need to know facts. That is part of the thing. You need to know facts if you are going to have some understanding. But a lot of us stop there. We know facts.
My students think that if they watch the History Channel, they will understand history, when all they are really doing is inundating themselves with facts. They never get the big picture, but they have all this minutiae of facts and all this storehouse of knowledge. Yet they do not really have a grasp of anything.
You can be lecturing about something, and they will bring up how the Germans used some machine in World War II. It has nothing to do with the outcome of World War II, the beginning of World War II, or anything—but it is a nice little fact.
A lot of us take our knowledge and think knowledge is what I know up here: “What do I know about the Lord? What do I know about what He wants from me?” We take all that, and it is up here.
But the actual word used here in Greek, I believe, is oida. It does mean “know,” but in a better translation it means to perceive.
Knowing facts and perceiving are two different things. To perceive is to become aware. You become aware that something is happening.
Some of you guys know what it is to become aware that you are in love. That is a wonderful perception. But it is not a factual thing. All of a sudden, you perceive, “There are stirrings in me. I’m in love.”
Here, the idea is not merely, “Did you not know?” It is, “Have you not perceived yet?” I think this is interesting because He asked it of His mother.
You would think, of all people, His mother would have known. There was the virgin birth, the Magi coming, and the prophecies of Anna and Simeon. You would think that she would have known. But she had not yet perceived, even then.
Sometimes our perception is growing. Just as we grow into adults physically, so our perception of the Lord grows.
When we look at this, we should ask: Has it dawned on you? Or has it not dawned on you?
Let us not put this in such a negative sense: “Hasn’t it dawned on you?” Jesus did not mean this negatively. He was not chiding His parents. He was not being sarcastic: “Don’t you know? What’s the matter with you?”
He is not like that, even when He is dealing with us.
When Philip said, in John 13, “Show us the Father, and it is enough,” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long?” The tone was not, “Have I been with you so long that you do not know?” No, it was a gentle tone: “Philip, have you not understood? Have you not become aware of these things?”
So we want to look at this very positively: Has it dawned on you?
Yesterday, when John was speaking, for some of us it has not dawned on us yet. That is not to exclude us. The question is not sarcastic, as though He were saying, “Well, you should know this by now.”
It is an inquiring question: “Has it dawned on you? Have you begun to see?” That is simply it. It is a probing question.
While we are here this week, that is really what the Lord is doing. He is probing you personally. What is in there? He wants to get beneath the veneer and into the very heart of where you are.
He is asking, “Has it dawned on you?”
As we take away the negative sense, we want to compare this with the Lord Jesus. Dana is going to do some ministry on the Lord Jesus tonight, but we have to ask: What did Jesus know? What was Jesus aware of?
He was aware of who He was. I cannot break down all these things, but at twelve years old, He knew who He was.
I do not know how He came to that revelation—whether He always had it or not—but this may have been His first time at the temple. His parents came up every year, but no one was expected to come until becoming a son of the law.
He was twelve years old. In Jewish tradition, at thirteen you are bar mitzvah, but at twelve you are coming into the initiation of bar mitzvah. You come before people, present yourself, and then begin studying for your bar mitzvah.
I was raised Catholic. In Catholicism, we did not have bar mitzvahs; we had confirmation. I know it is similar among Episcopalians and, I think, Lutherans.
The year before confirmation, you went to what we called catechism. In catechism, you learned all the facts about the faith so that you could confirm your faith. You could say, “Yes, I believe these things. I have studied them, looked at them, and now I am responsible.”
No one else is responsible for me. I am responsible for myself.
So Jesus was coming up to His bar mitzvah. This was also the Passover. How much in the Passover speaks of the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God?
I am not saying that Jesus suddenly became aware of these things. But I think that, at this time, they increased or pressed into bolder relief His awareness of who He was.
When His parents came, He could say without hesitation, “I must be about My Father’s business.” He was so aware of these things.
Hopefully, perhaps being here is a time the Lord has chosen for you, to press this awareness upon you.
What was Jesus aware of? We can speak generally of His mission, but I want to look at three things and then make an application.
First of all, He was aware of His favored status. He was favored by God. He knew Himself to be the only begotten of God—the only begotten, the only One.
Some of you come from families with more than one child. I was number five of six, so I was never aware of being the only begotten. For a while, my oldest sister was. She was the apple of the eye. But by the time number five comes along, it is, “Oh, is he missing? I didn’t know.”
But the Lord Jesus was aware that He was the only begotten Son. He also knew that the Father was pleased with Him. The Father made that statement at His baptism and at His transfiguration.
He knew that He was the Anointed One, the One whom God had chosen and upon whom He had placed His blessing to do the work prepared for Him.
Now my question is: How does this apply to us? Are we aware, as Christians, of our favored status? Do you know that you are favored by God?
Think of a father looking at his child. You can tell when the father is pleased. He is overjoyed. There is eye contact, delight, and affection. That child knows his favored status.
The question is: Do we know ours?
In John 1:12–13, it says:
But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name:
Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Brothers and sisters, we have the same access to the Father as the Lord Jesus. The same access. The same favored status that the Lord Jesus has, we have.
You cannot merely say, “Oh, I know that.” Have you pondered it? Have you thought about it? Have you brought it into your heart and really considered it?
What effect will that have on you? Do you understand that you have that same access and that favored status?
In 1 John 3:1–2, it says:
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God.
Beloved, now are we children of God.
This honor, this favored status, is not earned. It is bestowed. It is given.
You have not earned anything. Have you been born into the kingdom? Have you been born again? Then this status has been bestowed on you and given to you.
When do we receive it? It says, “Now are we children of God.” We do not have to grow into being children of God. We can grow up and become sons, but now we are children of God.
There is no waiting period for this favored status. It is yours now. This is where we stand: in this favored place.
If you are not aware of this, let me tell you what it means. I remember that I had a girlfriend once, and I finally got the courage to put my arm around her. I did not get the reaction I was hoping for.
Instead of snuggling up, I got this. I knew at that moment that I did not have favored status.
When you do not understand that you have favored status, everything you do is not done out of rest—out of knowing that you have been accepted and brought into this place. Everything you do becomes an attempt to earn this status.
Do you understand what I am saying? If you do not realize that you have this status, you are trying to please God and hoping that He will accept you.
But brothers and sisters, you do not have to do that, because we are already accepted in the Beloved. You have that favored status, and you are to walk as if you have it—because you do.
A sister prayed last night, “Lord, give us clarity that we are Yours.” I say amen. May we have that clarity this week: that we are Yours, that we do not have to try to become Yours, because we are Yours.
Sometimes we say, “Lord, why would You love me?” It does not matter why He loves us. The thing that matters is that He does love us.
There is no reason such as, “Oh, you are a good basketball player; I love you,” or, “You are good-looking; that gets My attention,” or, “You are a good student; I love you.”
We do not think, “You are a bum; I love you.” Yet in 1 Corinthians 1, it speaks of whom the Lord has chosen—the lowly, those without reputation in the world. Those are the people He has chosen.
He has chosen to set His love on you for no other reason than that. That is who He is. He is love.
Brothers and sisters, we need to understand that He loves us and that we have this favored status. Jesus was at rest concerning His standing with the Father. Because we are in Him and He is in us, we should also be at rest in that.
Secondly, He was aware of His Father.
Jesus never really referred to God as “our Father” when speaking of Himself. It was always “My Father.” It was not “Father of all mankind” or something like that. It was personal: “My Father. I know Him as My Father.”
A bar mitzvah means becoming a son of the commandment. To become bar mitzvah, you learn the Hebrew script of certain verses and memorize it. I know this because I had Jewish students studying for their bar mitzvah, and they would ask, “Could we recite to you?” I did not know what they were saying, but it sounded good.
You become a son of the law.
Now compare these things:
What is the difference? There is no relationship to a person in the first statement. “Son of the law” has no relationship to a person. But “I must be occupied in My Father’s business” is personal. It is a relationship.
Jesus was aware of this relationship that He had.
It was not up to the prodigal son to maintain favor by keeping commandments. He did not have to say, “Oh my gosh, I better make sure I am pleasing God, otherwise I am going to lose His favor.”
We are not to maintain favor by keeping commandments. We are to maintain relationship with the Father. That is where everything comes from.
If your father owns a business, you learn the business first through your relationship with your dad. It is that relationship with your dad that brings you into the business. Your dad teaches you the business because of the relationship he has with you.
That is what it is all about: maintaining the relationship. It is relationship before business.
In John 20:17, after Jesus rose from the dead, He said to Mary Magdalene:
Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended unto My Father: but go unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.
Then, a few verses later, in John 20:21, He said to the disciples:
Peace be unto you: as the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.
Verse 17 comes before verse 21. Relationship comes before business.
We want to go out, run ahead, and do business without the relationship. That is not God’s order. I am not saying that God will not let you go ahead and do that, but you will find that there is no joy in it when you are running on your own strength.
It is the relationship that gives you strength for the business. It is the relationship that helps you through the business, especially in hard times. When you are on your own, it is tough stuff.
The work comes out of the relationship. It is not the work that brings you into relationship; it is the relationship that brings you into the work.
Let us not get it backward. Relationship before business, just as Jesus had His relationship with the Father before He went out and did the work of His ministry. Thirty years of relationship before He went into ministry.
Thirdly, He was aware of His purpose.
We can be very spiritual and say, “What is the purpose of God?” Then we say, “Oh, it is to be conformed into the image of His Son.” That is the answer we know in our heads. That is what we have been taught.
But really, the purpose is an overriding purpose.
Think about Gethsemane. What happened there? Jesus prayed, “If this cup can be taken from Me”—but then, “Your will be done.”
That is overriding purpose. Instead of saying, “Let it go my way,” He said, “Your will be done.”
I have told this story before. I had a job that I really hated. Another brother worked there, and we were both Christians. He worked the morning shift, and I worked the evening shift. We were teaching kids who had been kicked out of school, so they all had behavioral problems.
We would meet between shifts and pray, “God, get us out of here.” That was being very honest.
One day, while we were praying—and we were crying and weeping because we disliked this job so much—this brother said, “What if the Lord wants us here? What if the Lord has a purpose in our being here?”
That was a novel thought, because we wanted out.
Then the prayer changed. Now, this is not very glorious, but it became, “Lord, get us out of here, but if we have to be here, make it quick.”
But that is the way we are, isn’t it? “Get us out of here.” We want our own way. We want it smooth. We want it over here. But there is an overriding will.
It is a blessed thing when you come to know that the Lord’s will for you, though different from the things you have chosen for yourself, is something you desire.
In Romans, it speaks of presenting yourself as a sacrifice. But it also says that in doing this, you find out that the will of God is good, acceptable, and perfect—not just for God, but for you.
It is the good thing for you. It is the acceptable thing. When you find out what He has meant in it, you start saying, “This was the right thing. I understand now. This is what I should have been doing in the first place.”
Then you find out that it was the perfect thing.
I did not want to be a teacher. I wanted to be a basketball player. But that was not the good, acceptable, and perfect will.
It was hard for me to find that out. But when I did, the Lord was gracious to say, “Jim, I’ll give you a taste, and you tell Me if you like it. Here is the glory of the world. Here are all these things. Do you like it?”
To come to the realization of saying, “No, I do not like it. This is not what I was made for”—that is the whole thing John was talking about. This is what I was made for. I was not made for the other stuff. I was made for this.
If we are a bird and spend all our time walking because we want to be like humans, is that satisfying? No, because we were not meant to be there. We were meant to fly.
In the same sense, we find out that God’s will is good, acceptable, and perfect.
The Lord Jesus knew that it was His delight to bring many sons to glory. This was His delight. This is what He came into the earth for. He did not come to set up an earthly kingdom. He came to die.
He came to die, and it was good to Him.
Now, let us apply this. How do you go about being occupied with the Father’s business? You are probably thinking, “Okay, this is where he tells us what to do,” because we are activity-oriented, aren’t we? “Got to do something. Got to do something.”
Well, let us find out what Jesus did to be occupied with His Father’s business.
Luke 2:43 says:
And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the boy Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem.
That is what He did. That is how He became occupied in His Father’s business. He lingered behind.
What does it mean that He lingered behind? Linger does not mean loiter. People who loiter have no purpose in what they are doing. They are just hanging around, hanging out at the drugstore. They are not lingering; they are loitering.
Lingering has a purpose. Lingering means you are waiting for something.
It is even stronger than that. I think the Greek word carries the idea of enduring—enduring the wait. You are not twiddling your thumbs; you are enduring the wait, not in a painful way, but waiting it out until you receive what you want.
When I was courting my wife—before I was courting my wife, trying to get her attention—I did a lot of lingering. Now, do not get that mixed up with stalking. I was not stalking her.
But I had seen something in her that I liked, so I would wait. I knew she had to come get her mail, and that would be a chance to talk with her. You linger. You wait.
Lingering is not merely an attitude. We try to take the Word of God and make it so that it does not really affect us. We say, “Oh, it is just an attitude. I have a lingering attitude.”
No, it is not merely an attitude. Or we say it is a desire. Yes, it is a desire, but it is more than a desire, because a desire can remain unfulfilled. You can desire something and not do it.
To linger means, “I not only desire it, but I am going to wait until I receive it.” Like Jacob: “I will not let You go, except Thou bless me.”
That is the kind of meaning it has.
Where was Jesus lingering? He was sitting in the midst of the teachers. What was He doing? He was doing three things:
Look at the order. What came first? He listened.
There is a painting I showed earlier of Jesus standing up in the temple. It is called Jesus Disputing with the Elders, as if He were talking them down.
But He was not doing that. He was not being presumptuous at all. It says He was listening. He was there to listen.
During Passover, teachers would come into the temple. Many people left early, having come for the sacrifice of the lamb and a few other things. They would go home two or three days into the festival, though the festival lasted seven or eight days.
But during the remaining time, teachers would come and teach. What were they likely teaching about? Probably the Passover, because people were coming from all different places.
Jesus listened. In other words, He took in what they were saying. He took it into Himself and let it remain there.
It was not like students letting information go in one ear and out the other, holding it only until the test and then forgetting it.
Jesus sat in the midst of teachers. He sat with older people. How many of you sit with older people?
At gatherings, we tend to sit in our little groups: people from Canada here, people from the United States there, juniors here, seniors there. We gather among ourselves. But Jesus did not sit with His peers. He sat with the teachers and listened to them.
Then He asked questions. This is something we often do not do.
You come to a conference, listen to things, and how many actually go and ask, “Lord, what does this mean?” A lot of us simply take things as facts. That is our generation: “Just feed me. That is what I want. I do not want to look it up.”
I used to tell my eighth graders in California, “You guys do not like to open the book. If you do not open the book, I can tell you so much stuff that you will think is true. I could tell you that Thomas Jefferson was the chancellor of Germany in 1892, and you would ask, ‘Is that on the test?’ I would say yes, and now you would believe it.”
A lot of times, we take things for granted as right, and they have no effect on us. But we need to take them and ask, “Lord, what does this mean to me? What are You saying to me in this? What effect should this have on me?”
We almost never question the Lord: “Why am I here, Lord? Why am I supposed to be about Your business?”
Sometimes we do not think we can question the Lord. But we can. He is open to it, and He wants us to question Him.
If you do not ask questions, how do we know where you are? If you do not ask questions, I assume that you understand everything I am saying and agree with it.
Finally, Jesus answered. What does it mean when you answer? You show where you are. The teachers were amazed at His wisdom and His answers. He showed spiritual acumen above and beyond His age.
For us, when the Lord questions us, or when people question us, it is simply a way of showing where we are.
When I give an essay test and ask students to answer a question, I find out what they know and how they reason. From there, I can say, “You are right on task,” or, “Whoa, you missed something, and we need to fix it.”
It is the same with us. We come to the Lord, fellowship with others, let our minds be known, ask questions, and answer. People are not trying to embarrass us. It is simply: “Where are you?”
I think that is what the Lord is asking here: “Where are you? Are you aware? Has it dawned on you?”
That is His question to you. Has it dawned on you that you are supposed to be about My Father’s business? Has it dawned on you that you are in a favored status? Has it dawned on you that why I died was to have a relationship with you?
Have those things dawned on you, or are they merely knowledge? Are you still just floating around somewhere?
The whole thing is that lingering had purpose. Lingering deepened Him. It is the same with us.
Will we linger? Will we say, “Lord, I want to know”? Will we endure the wait and say, “I am here until You speak”?
I do not mean that you sit there and make lingering into a schedule. “How long is lingering? Is that ten minutes? I have to do ten minutes of lingering?” No.
Lingering is not a set amount of time. It is waiting on the Lord. It may mean going to Him tomorrow and saying, “Lord, I still have not heard.” It may mean going to Him next week and saying, “Lord, I still have not heard.”
But if you keep coming, if you keep seeking, He will answer. He is drawing your heart out. He is drawing you out. That is what He wants.
I want to close with Psalm 131. This is one of the Psalms of Ascent, which they probably sang on their way up to Jerusalem—from Psalm 120 through Psalm 134, I think.
We will take verses 2 and 3.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child with his mother,
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forevermore.
The whole thing in bringing us here is this: it is time to grow. It is time to grow up.
Weaning was a time when you said, “I am no longer dependent on my mother for food.” You are ready for other food besides milk. You are more independent and ready to be responsible for yourself.
Here it says, “Like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Are you a weaned child? Have you been weaned? Are you in the process of being weaned?
The Lord does not want you to be unweaned forever. He wants you to be weaned because He wants sons.
But then it says, “O Israel, hope in the Lord.” Why is “Lord” capitalized in all letters? That is His personal name. Some versions use “Jehovah.” This is the personal name of God.
All He is saying is that from this time forth, He wants it to be a personal relationship. Hope in the Lord.
My youngest daughter, Jamie, loved her pacifier. She called her pacifier her “pa.” I was her dad, but her pacifier was her “pa.”
We could not get her to stop loving it. It was tough stuff. She would cry and do all these things. Then one day she lost it, and we could not find it.
She would say, “I want my pa. I want my pa.” We said, “We cannot help you. We do not know where it is.”
About a month later, we found her pa. She pulled up a couch cushion or something, and there it was. Her eyes got big: “My pa!”
She picked it up, looked at it, and put it down.
That was a wonderful moment for us, because all of a sudden she was saying, “I do not need this anymore.”
Brothers and sisters, that is what the Lord wants for us: that you do not need somebody telling you, because you have a relationship.
That does not mean you do not go to meetings or do these other things. But it means you take responsibility for yourself.
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth.
Hope in the Lord—not hoping in your mom or dad, not hoping that the conference will set you straight, but hoping in the Lord: the personal One, the One who can be known. Not the generic Lord, but the personal One. He has a name, and He wants you to know Him.
So, in closing, has it dawned on you? Has this dawned on you: that He has brought you to Himself first, as His beloved child, that you might be about His business?
It is not, “Be about His business first.” You have to realize first that you are His, because otherwise you cannot be about His business.
That is what John said last night. Have you realized that you are His, that you are beloved, that He has brought you to Himself for His own purposes?
He has brought you so that you might be about His business as a son in full understanding, in His time.
Let’s pray.
Lord, only You can speak. That is what I pray: that anything here which is a hook, anything that gets in and makes us look up to You, would be emphasized.
I pray that all of us, adults included, would not escape the understanding that You have brought us to Yourself for Your purposes.
Lord, help us not to put the cart before the horse. Help us to think first. Bring these things to our minds and to our awareness. Bring us to the awareness of You, most of all.
Lord, it is not the Father’s business that is the most important thing. It is You. We want to be brought to You.
So, Lord, we pray that this week You will bring us to Yourself. Then from there, You will bring us into the places we need to go.
We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.