This sermon delves into the childhood and developing years of Jesus, focusing on his upbringing in Nazareth, his early education in Scripture, and a significant incident in the temple at the age of 12. It highlights Jesus' humility, wisdom, and obedience to God's will, emphasizing the urgency and faith with which he approached his earthly mission. The sermon draws parallels between Jesus and other biblical figures like Moses, David, and Paul, showcasing Jesus as the perfect embodiment of meekness, passion for God, and a crucified life.

We're gonna be in Luke chapter 2 here in a few minutes, and we're gonna look at the childhood of Jesus today and his developing years a little bit. I'm gonna skip the nativity scene, you know, because as I thought about it and prayed about it, what was real to me was that it's mostly a story about Joseph and Mary and so on, and you know, that's what I said, we're just gonna have to leave some things out to get through the life of Christ. So today we'll be in Luke 2, and I'll get to that in a minute. Other than one incident, Scripture is silent about the first 30 years of the life of Christ, but there's a lot that we can surmise just from historical records and so on about what life was like for him as a little boy. But let me get us in the right situation first. Matthew tells us that Joseph took Mary and Jesus to Egypt until Herod died, and then once Herod died, they returned, and it seems obvious that Joseph had planned on setting up shop in Bethlehem. Maybe he thought that, you know, Jesus needed to be raised there because of the prophecy, but whatever the case is, the Lord directed him, no, I don't want you there, go on back to your hometown Nazareth. So that's where Jesus was raised, in Nazareth. Galilee is a lot different from Judea. Galilee is fertile and green, Judea is dry and arid, you know, and the Jews had a saying, if you want to make money, go to Galilee, but if you want to be pious, go to Judea or Jerusalem, you know, and that was kind of the main difference between the two, but the Lord did not want his son to be raised in the religious, ritualistic atmosphere and environment of Jerusalem. So Jesus spent almost his entire life in that little area called Galilee. It's kind of an amazing thing when you think about it. Joseph was a blue-collar worker and, you know, he would be considered part of the middle class. He was a carpenter, a construction guy, he would build furniture or farm implements or houses, you know, those are the kinds of things he would do. He was good with his hands, good at figuring things out, no doubt, and it seems clear that he was respected as a good man and a pious Jew in the community. According to Gabriel, Mary was most highly favored of all women, you know, she was just a young girl when she became pregnant with Jesus and she seemed to be a very humble girl and probably, no doubt, developed into a very loving mother. And after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary had at least four kids, probably more than that. We know that he had four half-brothers, James, Joses, Jude, and Simeon, and then apparently a couple of half-sisters as well. So, you know, this was a pretty good-sized family living in this simple stone house with dirt floors, you know, their lifestyle was so simple in those days and, you know, that was the kind of home Jesus grew up in. He wasn't destitute, they weren't totally impoverished, but they definitely weren't well-off and had no luxuries or anything like that in life. But that home had to be filled with the joy of the Lord. I mean, can you imagine having Jesus live in your home, you know? And I'm sure he brought a lot of joy in the home, but also just a godly home. One of the main aspects to his young life would be receiving instruction in the law, but even as a boy, he was raised up with the stories of the Old Testament saints, you know, he would have heard all about Moses and Joshua and Samson and Gideon and David and Bathsheba and Elijah and Ahab and Hezekiah and Isaiah, Daniel and the Babylonian captivity, but he also would have heard about the Maccabees and Antiochus Epiphanes and, you know, all that period as well. He would have been raised on those kinds of stories. From the ages of five to ten, he would have been taught by a rabbi at the local synagogue, and then at ten years of age, these Jewish boys would kind of step into a secondary school of sorts and begin to learn the Mishnah, which was the oral traditions, kind of like commentaries on Scripture, and then at the age of 15, he would have gone into the next phase of his training, which would have been more of a deep, I don't know, examination of the Mishnah, kind of like commentaries on the commentary. The Mishnah was the official commentary of Scripture, and then later, you know, the oral traditions that came through the different generations, then these young people would be taught, you know, all that in a deeper level. So, when you hear Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount, you have heard that it was said, you know, what he's referring to is the oral traditions that all Jews were raised up under, you know, and I won't get into that, but it is a very interesting thought that, you know, Jesus was raised in that, and you see it when he starts dealing with the Pharisees and so on later on in his life. He knows fully well where they're coming from and what they're teaching and so on. Edersheim believes that Joseph probably purchased an entire Old Testament because Jesus seems to be so well-versed in Scripture, he had to have had access to the Old Testament, and of course, you know, it would have been a real luxury for just a regular family to own a copy of the Bible. That just wasn't normal in those days. Let me read this quote from Farrar, that his knowledge of the sacred writings was deep and extensive, that, in fact, he must almost have known them by heart, is clear, not only from his direct quotations, but also from the numerous allusions he made to the law. This profound and ready knowledge of the Scriptures gave more point to the half-indignant question so often repeated, have you not read? The language which our Lord commonly spoke was Aramaic, and at that period Hebrew was completely a dead language, known only to the more educated and only to be acquired by labor, yet it is clear that Jesus was acquainted with it, for some of his scriptural quotations directly refer to the Hebrew original. He must have also known Greek, for it was currently spoken in towns so near his home as Sepphoris, Caesarea, and Tiberias, and without it Jesus could not have had conversations with strangers, with the centurion, for instance, whose servant he healed, or with Pilate and others. Some two of his scriptural quotations are taken directly from the Septuagint, even where it differs from the Hebrew original. Of course, the Septuagint is the Greek version of the Old Testament. But whatever the case may be, in all his learning of Scripture and so on, one thing certainly must be the case is that most of his learning came from deep within his soul, because, you know, God indwelt him in a way that, you know, it's not, I guess, true of us, well definitely not, and, you know, he must have been able to sense and hear the voice of God in a very profound way, even as a young boy. All right, now let's get into the Scripture passage here. We're going to be in Luke 2, verse 40 to the end of the chapter. Let me just start here. I'm kind of cutting right in, you know, they've come back from Egypt and, you know, got established in Nazareth. Okay, and then verse 40, the child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. All right, this is one of Luke's typical summary statements that he makes, you know, as we went through the book of Acts, we were seeing every now and then a summary statement that just kind of summed up what was going on at the time. And so we have this one summary statement is all that Scripture tells us about the first 12 years of the Messiah's life on earth. John Wesley said, Jesus was filled with wisdom by the light of the indwelling Spirit, which gradually opened itself in his soul. Yeah, and you just grasp that. I mean that is such a profound thought that John Wesley came upon there, you know, that the fountain of wisdom was within him, and yet he had to grow into the comprehension of that wisdom. Matthew Henry says, other children have foolishness bound in their hearts, which appears in what they say or do, but he was filled with wisdom by the influence of the Holy Ghost. Everything he said and did was wisely said and wisely done above his years. While other children show the corruption of their nature, nothing but the grace of God was upon Jesus. And I was thinking about that this morning, just what it was like for Jesus as a boy, as an adolescent, as a teenager, as a young man, you know, just this development as a human being. And I started thinking about some things I wrote in my book Irresistible to God, which is all about how pride formulates within us and becomes this ugly aspect of the fallen nature, and of course, you know, how the Lord shows us to come out of the domination of pride. But anyway, in the second chapter of this book, I talk about the formation and development of pride. And I talk about how young people get hurt emotionally by other people when they're growing up. And the more that they get hurt, and the less that their parents are affirming them with a sense of love and creating a sense of security in the home, there is an, well, insecurity develops within that young boy's makeup. And, you know, it can become very deep in a young person. We talk about an inferiority complex, you know, that's just, I don't know, some kind of, I don't know who came up with that, but anyway, it's a way of referring to young people who become very insecure in their dealings with other people. And the devil provides a solution to that, and it's called pride. Pride is the way that human beings protect themselves from getting hurt, and it's also the way that we can push ourselves up at the expense of others, so that we can feel better about ourselves. But Jesus had none of that. So think of it when he's a boy, when he's an adolescent, he's a teenager, and just the way kids are, and how mean they can be. And I was a very mean kid, you know, they talk about bullying these days. I'm ashamed to say, but I was a bully in some ways. And, you know, kids can just be very ugly and very mean, and they do it for their own pride reasons, but then that hurts other kids. When Jesus was attacked, or ridiculed, or whatever, he never reacted or responded in the same spirit. I could just see him, you know, in just a good-natured way, kind of laughing it off, or just having a gentle answer, which, you know, how's it go, a gentle answer defers wrath, is that how it's said in Proverbs? So that is how Jesus grew up, humble, and sweet-natured, and unselfish, while other kids around him are just typical, you know. And man, I tell you, human beings are very corrupt, and when you start really getting into the inner workings of people, you come to realize how all of us, even the most together people, are just a mess inside when you really start getting into their lives. All right, well, I'm going to get into this incident that occurred in Jerusalem, and before I do, I'll just mention that Luke had to have gotten this story directly from Mary, you know, and if you remember when we studied through Acts, when Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea, and Luke was there with him, and I said then that undoubtedly that is when Luke started getting, developing all his sources for his gospel, and so he probably met Mary and spent some time with her, and just asked her questions, and whatever, you know, Scripture is silent, mostly, about, excuse me, those first 30 years of his life, because this is the Holy One, and the Lord doesn't want, you know, too much speculation there, but he did give us this one incident, and it really says a lot. Let's start here, verse 41, Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover, and when he became 12, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast. All right, now, you know, when a boy reached puberty, nowadays, a Jewish boy goes through the Bar Mitzvah, and a girl goes through Bat Mitzvah, and it's basically an initiation ceremony into adulthood. It's like the first step towards adulthood for a Jewish child, and so Jesus would now be considered a son of the covenant, and at this age, he would start to learn a trade, which was required of all Jewish boys, and so on, and also at this age, he'd be required to begin going to the three great Jewish feasts held every year in Jerusalem, so undoubtedly, the family would go there three times a year, and this may have been the first time Jesus went there. Verse 43, And as they were returning, okay, so the feast is over, they've been there a week, and they're heading back to Galilee, and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents were unaware of it, but supposed him to be in the caravan, and one a day's journey, and they began looking for him among their relatives and acquaintances. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for him. Then after three days, they found him in the temple. Let me just stop there. So apparently what happened was, maybe he slipped out in the early morning and headed to the temple, and everyone just, you know, this big caravan of people from Galilee, maybe from Nazareth, maybe they all traveled together, and so they start heading out, and it was pretty typical for the men to kind of walk together as a time for them to fellowship and so on, and the women to be together, and they're just, you know, this happy train of people heading north, and probably Mary thought that Jesus was with Joseph and the men, and Joseph probably thought that he was with Mary and the women, and they could have been either way at that age, but anyway, so they go a full day's journey before they find out. That night when Mary and Joseph come together, Jesus isn't with either of them, and they, you know, freak out, no doubt, and so the next morning they get up and make the full day's journey back, and then they probably spent a full day looking for him, you know, in Jerusalem, and finally discover him there in the temple. All right, anyway, verse 46, then 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 amazed at his understanding and his answers. Jesus had a passion to learn about his father's kingdom, and even if these scholars were, you know, misguided in some ways or superficial in their understanding or whatever, Jesus wanted to get everything he could possibly get, so I'm sure that he was just absorbing whatever he could get in that situation, but it probably didn't take long before it became obvious that he had a greater grasp of the flow, the overall thinking, the mindset of Scripture than these scholars did. They had become so corrupted by all these ritualistic things, and all the oral traditions, and so on, and that the Scriptures and the meaning of the Scriptures had been so twisted by the first century, and here comes Jesus with a completely fresh clean, pure perspective of what the Scriptures meant, and when he spoke he had to speak with authority. His understanding of Scripture, even at that young age, wasn't just academic. He comprehended the deeper spiritual meaning of the law, of the historical books, of Psalms and Proverbs, and especially of the prophets. He grasped it, you know, to some level or at some level, and I was thinking about this, and I thought about Psalm 119, which is a cry from a sincere young man's heart for the Word of God. It's a passion for God's Word. It's a sight. It comes from someone who really had a sight of the great value of Scripture, and I started thinking about Jesus and how much that reflects the heart that he had as a young man, and I thought of these verses. I'm going to read verse 97 to 100, and man, I could just see this coming right out of the heart of Jesus. Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine. I have more insight than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have observed your precepts. You know, and you think about that with Jesus. Wow. It's just really a very marvelous thought. Well, it says here that the leaders were amazed at him, and you know, that is the same word that is in the Greek term that's at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, where it says when Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. But listen to it in the Amplified. The crowds were astonished and overwhelmed with bewildered wonder at his teaching. Now maybe, you know, during these next eight years, it went from being amazing to being more like the Amplified version of like, wow, just where does this man get this knowledge? And people said things like that. They just could not comprehend how this young man, who was nothing but a carpenter, he hadn't gone through the Jewish system, educational system, and so on, you know, the further deeper system like Saul of Tarsus would go through. He hadn't been through all that learning and all of that. How could he have such a grasp on Scripture? Well, it's because he had God indwelling him, and so on. The Pope of Commentary says his questions keenly and deeply penetrated into the confused errors of the rabbinical teaching. Yep, and Shepard said, it was not strange that Jesus should ask questions, but it was extraordinary that his questions should such insight as to attract the special attention of the learned doctors, and that he should manifest such facility in answering the questions which were put to him. Zeal for knowledge was strong in Jesus. He had made good use of the years of his childhood and stored up much knowledge of the Old Testament in a retentive memory. Yeah, and I wondered, you know, I believe that Jesus was incredibly intelligent. He just had a very sharp mind. Maybe he had a photographic memory, you know, but probably a very strong memory. You know, when we think of our mental capacities or capabilities, how much they're marred by sin, you know, by corrupt nature. But to be completely free from the adverse effects of sin, and to be able to have a mind that works the way God originally created it to work, can you imagine how sharp Jesus must have been? So when he studied Scripture, he got it. You know, he really absorbed it, you know, first intellectually, but obviously, more importantly, spiritually. All right, well anyway, eventually Joseph and Mary caught up with him, and well, let's just read this. Verse 48, when they saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, son, why have you treated us this way? Behold, your father and I have been anxiously looking for you. And he said to them, why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my father's, all right, in the Greek, there is no word there. The NAS says father's house, the King James says, don't you know that that I must be about my father's business? Now either one of those could be the correct meaning, and both of them are certainly true, and true of the situation. I like the King James in this particular case, because to me it really brings out something about the heart and passion of Jesus Christ, and I'll get to that here in a few minutes as we wrap things up. But anyway, these are the first recorded words of the Son of God, you know, at least, well, as Jesus Christ. There's a couple of things I'll say about Mary's reaction, you know. I guess the first thing that stood out to me was that she dealt with Jesus instead of Joseph. Joseph is silent. Now I don't know if that was because Joseph was just a quiet man by nature, more reserved in his temperament, and Mary tended to be more of the forceful personality. I don't know, it could have been that, or maybe Joseph just had a very strong comprehension that he was only the stepfather of the Son of God. You know, it could be either way. But anyway, Mary gets upset with Jesus, and she was respectful about it, but she was irritated. There's no question about that, you know. And in her thinking, it's like, man, at the very least you're being insensitive to our needs, Jesus. Well, I've been a little more than irritated with the Lord myself a few times, but we're always wrong. Anytime you disagree with the Lord, you're just wrong, and no matter what, you're wrong. It just is the way it is. But anyway, Mary gets upset, but she probably should try to remember who it is that she's talking to. And I think, you know, maybe what happened was 12 years have gone by since all the miraculous events associated with his birth, and these angelic visitations and stuff, and not that those things weren't still real and that they didn't believe them. But, you know, time just has a way of making things fade, and the day-in, day-out mundaneness of life. Jesus is just a good kid, you know, and he's not doing miracles and stuff, just building a playground, you know, creating a playground or something. He wasn't doing stuff like that. He was just having a regular life as a young boy, and maybe over time, you know, they just kind of lost sight of that. I don't know. Anyway, we're given this little glimpse into what was going on with Jesus at the time, and it seems clear that he was already becoming aware of his special role to mankind, even at this age. He was the Son of the Living God, and his primary obligation in life was to learn his Father's will and to do it, even at the expense of his relationship with his earthly parents. You know, first things first, and he had to do the will of God, to learn it and do it, and he had things in their right place. So, anyway, let's look at verse 50 here, but they did not understand the statement which he had made to them. Let me read another quote here. This is from Archbishop Thompson. There has descended into Mary's humble home a treasure too great for heaven itself to contain. Twelve years of meek obedience in common household tasks and duties had passed since his birth, but his work shall not be with the axe and hammer in Joseph's workshop, but it shall lie in turning souls from darkness to light, from death to life, from the power of Satan unto God. She will acquiesce, but not till she has painfully learned the plan of God and the life of battle with all forms of evil, which he shall lead in the face of Satan and his host. Some have entertained angels unawares, but the king whom angels serve is a sojourner under her roof. She has to unlearn the speech of a mother and learn that of a worshipper of the adorable Son of God and her Redeemer. She must cease to command and to admonish and kneel with the rest of us before the cross that was raised for all our guilty race alike." So you can imagine, wow, what a transition. We've only got, we've got two mothers here. You can imagine what that would be like to go from being a mother of a son to worshiping him and, you know, whatever, I'll just leave that alone. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and he continued in subjection to them. Man, lowly Jesus, just amazing. And his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. All right, so here's Luke's second summary statement in this section of Scripture. You know, in verse 40 he summed up the first 12 years of the life of Christ, and then this summary statement, he sums up the next 18 years of his life, and from there it goes straight into the story of John the Baptist and then Jesus coming on the scene and so on. Anyway, this word increasing is literally kept advancing, and some of the translations, I think, word it that way, which is really more the idea, like an army advancing on a, you know, country or something. And that's the way it was for Jesus' growth as a young person. He did have to develop as a human being. He wasn't just, you know, he didn't, he wasn't born with omniscience. He wasn't born with infinite wisdom. He had to learn things. It says in Hebrews that he learned through suffering, even. And he wasn't born with infinite power. Actually, he was weak and completely at the mercy of human beings as a baby. And even as he grew, you know, he had the weakness of a child and so on. He couldn't just snap his fingers and throw heaven, I mean, fire down from heaven or whatever. He had to develop as a human being. So the only other comment made about the first 30 years of Jesus' life comes in Mark 6 3, where someone asked the question, isn't this the carpenter? You know, so that's the only thing we know. Probably Joseph died. We never hear anything else about him after the incident in the temple. And so he probably died at some point, maybe during Jesus' teenage years or something. And Jesus had to become the primary bread winner for the home. So he took up the work of his stepfather and became a carpenter. Just a lowly, honorable profession and made money and sustained the household and so on until he reached 30 years of age. Anyway, let me read a couple of quotes. They're a little bit lengthy, but they're good. Farrar says this, once more from this long silence, from this deep obscurity, from this monotonous routine of an unrecorded and uneventful life, we were meant to learn that our real existence in the sight of God consists in the inner and not in the outer life. The world hardly attaches any significance to any life except those of its heroes and benefactors, its mighty intellects or its splendid conquerors. But Christ came to convince us that a relative insignificance may be of absolute importance. He came to teach that continual excitement, prominent action, distinguished services, brilliant success are not essential elements of a true and noble life, and that multitudes of the beloved of God are to be found among the insignificant and the obscure. You know, and that is so true. How I wish the Church of Jesus Christ really saw things like that, you know, and really had their value system from God's kingdom rather than from the world that applauds, you know, all its heroes and so on. The Pope of Commentary said this, between 12 years of age and 30, the Son of God was content to wait. The public life lasted for three years. He waited for 30 years. A great disproportion, we might say, but God's ways are not our ways. All the while, he was growing in wisdom. He thought, he prayed, he lived by the Father. The results of the long silence were evidenced in the exquisite parables of later years, in the wisdom which none could refuse, in the authority which separated his doctrine from that of the scribes. The accumulated capital was great. Oh, what gracious words may have issued from his lips during those 18 years which are not recorded. But the words which, by the Father's ordination, he was to testify to the world were sealed up till his hour was come. Then, one after another, burst forth each, as it were, a deeper stream from the long, pent-up fountains of eternal wisdom and truth. You know, wow, can you imagine? What would it have been like, you know, to be around Jesus when he was 29 years old, and just hang out with him and talk to him about the things of God? And, you know, he's not anybody. He's just a carpenter, but you're just talking with him. It's like, wow, must have just been amazing for those people in Nazareth. And yet, no one seemed to know anything about him there, because they were astonished when he came back and spoke in the synagogue there later. All right, I said I'd get back to this statement. Let me just spend a few minutes on this. He used these two words, I must. I must. And those words really describe the urgency of his life. I must. And I made note of some verses where these words are used, or something similar, to reflect that sense. Luke 443, he must preach the kingdom of God to the cities. Luke 922, he must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, and be killed, and so on. Luke 1333, he must journey to Jerusalem, for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem. Luke 1725, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Luke 1905, he must stay in the house of Zacchaeus. Luke 2237, the Old Testament prophecy saying that he would be numbered with the transgressors must be fulfilled. Luke 247, he must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. Luke 2444, all the things that were written about him in the Old Testament must be fulfilled. John 314, he must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. John 9-4, he must do the works of his father. John 10-16, he must bring his sheep into the fold. And finally, John 20, verse 9, he must rise again from the dead. In other words, he must be about his father's business. And you can see better now why I believe that's more of the sense of what he was saying, because that mentality carried him through his life, you know. And again, I was thinking about this. This happened when he was 12 years old, okay, technically his first day of adulthood. His last day, the evening before, you know, it was during that 24 hours. His last day on earth, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said to his father, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done. And I believe that those two statements are like brackets in his entire adult life, you know. And they both say the same thing, I must do my father's will, you know. And so that carried him through without any compromise, without any, you know, what can I say, let down or whatever. With Jesus, there was urgency, but no impatience. There was faith, but he never overreached beyond where he should be at the time or whatever. There was ambition, but there was no self in it. His ambition was completely for God. And I was thinking about who in the Bible, you know, do we really look up to as best reflecting attributes of God? And at least, you know, my thinking, I came up with Moses, David, and Paul, who happened to be the ones who devoted the most writings to the Bible, to Scripture. Moses was considered the meekest man on earth. And yet, think about how he began the ministry. As we heard last week, the first thing he did in the ministry was to murder a man, you know. And it was kind of a joke that David Leopold made when he said that, but it's true, because he had just received a sense of his call to lead his people into liberation. And the first thing he went out and did in the flesh to try to make it happen was to murder an Egyptian. And so it took 40 years for the Lord to work on his nature to get him just to the point where he could subdue his nature enough as an 80 year old man to where he could lead the people without getting self in the middle of it. But Jesus was meek the whole way through, you know, and he didn't beat any rocks with the staff out of anger and stuff like that. You know, Jesus was completely meek. David is known as a man after God's own heart, and the reason he was known for that was because he had such a passionate nature to know the Lord. He loved the Lord. His heart, he was an emotional sort of guy. He'd be a lot like Jeff Cologne probably, you know, and he just had a great deal of affection for God, and it really came out in the Psalms that he wrote and so on. A heart after God. But he also had a heart full of lust, didn't he? That was never quite conquered and got him in a lot of trouble. Well, Jesus had a heart after God completely, perfectly, and never had any selfish thoughts or sinful thoughts to go along with it. Paul is known for being the man who lived a crucified life, and he did. It is not I, but it is Christ who lives within me. You know, and now he was in the New Covenant's time, so the Holy Spirit indwelled him, unlike Moses and David. Their situation was a little different. But still, even at that, when we went through the life of Paul, it became, you know, obvious that he could be a little bit difficult to get along with, you know, and he did tend to cause problems everywhere he went, and sometimes he pushed too hard, you know, in his passion to get the gospel out across the Roman Empire. Sometimes he pushed too hard, and he caused problems at times. Now, he was a godly, godly man, and the Lord did a great work inside of him, but, you know, you can't compare Paul to Jesus. One's mortal, and the other is perfect. So, I don't care who you look at. No one can compare to Jesus Christ and the way that he lived his life. You know, at one point, I can't remember what the context was, but he said there's a greater one than Jonah here, you know, and Jesus could say that in a completely humble way. It was just a fact, and it is a fact no matter whose name you put in that slot. Paul, Moses, David, Billy Graham, I don't care who you put in there, there is a greater one here, and it's his life that we're gonna be studying. So, next week, we will get into his call into the ministry, his initiation into the ministry, and we'll start getting into those three years of ministerial life. That's it for today. God bless you guys. See you next week.