The Early Days Of Jesus Luke

Well, brothers and sisters, it's a joy to be with you again this morning to worship as we come to open the Word of God and to sit under the preaching of the Word this morning. I'm honored to be before you this morning.

Well, we have been blessed the last two weeks to be in the epistle of 1 John. And as we have been going through just a little over a chapter now in 1 John, it's wonderful to be moving throughout the Bible. As your elders, we desire to to present the whole counsel of God, to give a hearty diet of strong meat and of the Word of God, that you be fed well and nourished in your own soul. And so, as we move in different portions of the Scripture, we pray this will do this, and knowing that The epistles, we have the epistles of Paul and Peter and Jude and John, they explain the gospel. They explain Acts. And so the gospels and Acts tell us what has occurred, what happened. But many times we need the epistles to explain these things.

So we are going back to the gospel, the gospel of Luke. And I pray that we'll be, for a time, maybe in a month from now, in one of the Old Testament prophets, where we periodically go to the Psalms. So we want to seek the Spirit's guidance as we move through different portions of Scripture and Possibly down the road from now, we'll be back in the epistles. I'm looking at possibly first Thessalonians. And then maybe at some point, maybe some more apocalyptic Old Testament passages. We'll just see. But we desire to traverse through the Bible in a way that's glorifying to God.

begin as we come into Luke 2, let's remind ourselves where we've been. Luke's gospel has talked of John the Baptist and prediction of a prophecy of his coming and the parallel accounts of Jesus and how the predictions of Jesus coming, being born, and the prophecy to Zacharias and how he was mute for a while and then John was born and then Zacharias' lips have opened and his tongue is loose and then Jesus is born. The Son of God coming into creation. We had a blessed time over Christmas looking at this passage and how the birth scene, and then the shepherds. Remember how they were notified and they come. Well, this is where we are back to. We are just past the shepherds. So Jesus has been born and seven days, eight days have passed, about a week. Jesus has been in this earthly ministry for about a week. And that's where we are coming today in Luke. And we will be in Luke two and through verse 21 to 24.

Let's pray before we read the text. Father, I hope, I pray that you would help us, Lord, as we come before your word. This is the word of God. This is breathed out by the spirit of God. And Lord, I pray that we would receive it as such, that we would be disciples. We would come as learners to you, not as judges, Lord, but we would come as those desiring to sit at your feet and be taught by your word. So may your spirit work in all of us today, both preacher and listener. And Lord, may you be glorified most of all. It's in Christ's name that we pray, amen.

Let us open to Luke. If you are able and would like to, we can stand for the reading of the word and we'll read starting in verse 21. And when eight days had passed before his circumcision, his name was then called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the days for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord Yahweh. And to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. Amen. Thus ends the reading of the word. You may be seated this morning.

We are looking at the early days of Jesus, the Holy One, very God of very God, coming into creation, coming into the Virgin Mary, being conceived in the womb. This is He who sustains all things. power of his own glory, that he would enter into creation as a little babe, a little babe like we have even amongst us today, some little ones that are not yet even able to crawl. And here, this babe, who is God in flesh, is dependent for a time upon his own mother for nourishment, dependent on the care of his earthly parents.