THE MAIN IDEA
Jesus is fully God and fully human and fully alive in the church. 

JESUS IS FULLY GOD
You can’t really call yourself a Christian unless you acknowledge  that Jesus is fully God (John 1:1-3). And the notion that Jesus is God came from Jesus  Himself! Even at twelve years old, Jesus knew. When Jesus refers to God as “My Father,”  He is claiming to be the Son of God—that is, God Himself. That is what everyone  understood when Jesus made that claim (John 5:17-18). In fact, Jesus explicitly made the  claim of being the Son of God (“I Am”) when He was on trial before the Jewish authorities  before going to the cross. It is because Jesus fully knew that He is fully God and because  Jesus publicly claimed that He is the Son of God, that Jesus went to the cross. It is our sin  that sent Him there. The sacrifice of no other human being could have satisfied the justice of  God to account for all the sins of all of humanity across all of time—all of our sins—past,  present, and future. But they have all been paid for by the sacrifice of the Son of God, Jesus  Christ. And His sacrifice is enough. It is finished. Because He is fully God. 

JESUS IS FULLY HUMAN
It may be easier to believe that Jesus is fully God than it is to  wrap our minds around the fact that Jesus is fully human. We tend to think that because  Jesus is the Son of God, He must have had a full knowledge of the Scriptures since He was  born. But Jesus, being fully human, had to learn the Bible in the same that we all have to  learn the Bible. And if Jesus, the Son of God, had to learn the Bible the old-fashioned way,  how much more so do we need to do the same. Also, even though He had to learn the  Scriptures the old-fashioned way, He was still the Son of God, which He knew. Yet the very  Son of God humbly accepted instruction from these human teachers that were around Him,  and it doesn’t say that there was anything special about them. Our spiritual growth and  understanding depend less on who our teacher is and more on our teachable heart. Having a  teachable heart is critical to discipleship. 

JESUS IS FULLY ALIVE IN US
In the Gospel of Luke, the narratives of Jesus as a child  begin and end in the temple. The entire Gospel begins and ends in the temple. And that’s  not just by accident. What Jesus literally said was, “It is necessary for me to be in My  Father’s house.” Luke uses the statement “it is necessary” throughout the Gospel when he  wants to emphasize Jesus’s mission. Jesus’s statement that “It is necessary” is not simply  about Bible study. The Bible is the platform upon which we enter into a relationship with  God. Jesus was saying, “It is necessary for Me to be with My Father,” relationally speaking.  And where else would He have to be if He wanted to be with His Father, if not in the  Father’s house? And that same logic applies to us who follow Jesus Christ as Lord and  Savior. But where did Jesus learn that from? Jesus got that worldview from His parents! Their faithfulness was demonstrated through their active participation in the spiritual life of  their community, and that faithfulness had a positive impact on the spiritual formation of  the child Jesus. The point of this passage is “that the Son of God becomes a son of man so  that the sons and daughters of men might by grace become the children of God” (Alistair  Begg). And where else would the children of God be found, if not in the Father’s house,  where the Son of God lives and is alive in us. 

DISCUSSION QUESTION:
Has anyone ever encouraged you to draw closer to Christ and His church? How  so? Have you ever encouraged someone to draw closer to Christ and His church? How?